I seem to have missed a chunk of the discussion re letters, but here
goes.
1. Does anyone else think that MARM is a suspicious acronym? I'm trying
to decide what to put on my department business card, and Mrs A Locker
MARM sounds a little silly. MA MARM sounds even worse.
2. I think any move to add letters to the end of our names to reinforce
our self-worth and exclude others is a very bad idea. Academic
qualifications are important, as is CPD, but there is a danger of
thinking that archival work is a mysterious activity that requires high
levels of esoteric knowledge. It is not. Most of it is common sense,
and there are just too few academic/professional/knowledge principals to
restrict the activity to a privileged few. I thought the profession was
aiming to expand and become more open, enabling people to understand what
we do and what we think is important. How can archivists achieve this on
their own??
We had to have one of the IT support people up to the office to sort out
a problem. He said, "So, this is archives. What exactly do you do in
here?" I'm sure many archivists working on their own or as part of a
small team recognise the problem of educating people about archives and
archival activities. Reinforcing our sense of worth amongst ourselves
doesn't really help.
Anne Locker
Anne Locker - Archives
Institution of Electrical Engineers,Savoy Place,LONDON,WC2R 0BL
Email: [log in to unmask]
Telephone: +44 (0)171 344 8407
Fax: +44 (0)171 344 5395
World Wide Web: http://www.iee.org.uk/
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|