Career As an Archivist

©2006 Institute for Career Research

MANUSCRIPT EDITOR, HISTORICAL EDITOR, ARCHIVAL MANAGEMENT, CARETAKERS OF THE TREASURES OF THE PAST

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Archival professionals: $20,000 to $70,000 Annually

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Editors: $25,000 to $85,000

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Wide variety of interests Ability to multi-task Ability to organize time well Love detail High standard of ethics Communications skills

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Corporations Religious Organizations Artistic organizations Research firms Privately funded historic sites Educational institutions State & local governments Pop culture museums Broad knowledge of the humanities, liberal arts & history

Handle records of individuals or families Acquire record, arrange them, & help them to be used

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Master's in Library & Information Science

Organize records into folders & boxes & label them

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Job satisfaction

Format & edit the records to be used by wider audiences Make sure rare materials are not stolen or endangered

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Help Others Satisfying feeling of bringing order out of chaos Preserve pieces of the past

Does this sound like you, your thoughts? ● ● ● ● ●

It would be fun to clean out Grandpa's garage. We have a lot to learn from the past. I have all my music organized six different ways for instant access. I prefer to spend my free time at museums and libraries. My favorite station is The History Channel.

If you do, you may have the makings of an archival professional. Archival professionals preserve primary sources of history - records and documents created by people in the past - so that they can be accessed and interpreted by people today. Archivists share similarities with librarians and historians, but have their own special niche. They are the ones who provide the clues to see how we got to where we are today. Their methods let people get inside the heads of those who went before us, by letting the sources speak for themselves and not imposing contemporary notions on them. It's the closest you can get to actual time travel, and archival professionals are the ones at the controls. Though relatively few in numbers, members of this field have enormous influence. They are the caretakers of history, passing on to the future what is considered important. Along the way, they help society rediscover itself. There is scarcely a sector in popular culture today that is not touched by the work done in archives and libraries. Films are released on DVD with the original trailers, publicity stills, and trimmed footage. Box sets bring together alternate takes and home recordings. The designs of Frank Lloyd Wright decorate ties and glassware. Shoes with platform soles harken back to the 1970s. Chrysler uses hot rod designs as inspiration for the PT Cruiser. Comfort foods like meatloaf and mashed potatoes made from grandma's original recipes are dished up in restaurants. Archival professionals do more than make the past available. They are the ones answering the question, how do we save what's important of the present? How do we preserve the primary sources of today's history? How do we take the multiplicity of electronic and computer formats and make sense of them to users in the future when today's hardware will be obsolete? Do we translate them into a more standard interface, equivalent to microfilming fragile papers? Does that take anything away from the integrity and authenticity of the original? The rules for 21st century record keeping are being worked right now. The way we will be perceived centuries from now rests on the decisions of archivists and the other professionals who will be described in this report. What You Can Do Now Your first step in considering an archival career for your future is to read this report. There are numerous Web sites listed for further information. Don't just rely on these, however. Observe, ask questions, get first-hand experience, and start deciding whether you like or dislike what you learn. Go to lectures and exhibits at historical museums and facilities. See if there is a certain period of history that excites you, or a certain group. Take all the history classes you can. Look for opportunities to use primary sources for term papers. For instance, Lewis and Clark's journal of their expedition across the West has been published. Cite that instead of a book about their journey. Try tracing your family history. It's a good introduction to using public records such as the federal census, ship passenger lists, birth and death indexes, and so on. You might be able to use a state archive or a branch of the National Archives. See if you can find out where your ancestors were and what they were doing during famous

events like the attack on Pearl Harbor or the sinking of the Titanic. Volunteer at a nearby historical society. Maybe you'll index obituaries in the local paper or create a database for donated photographs. You'll get a feel for how the holdings are organized and ways you might improve them. Talk to the staff there. Find out how they got interested in the field, what kind of things they do. A Special Collections librarian is another good resource. Most people are happy to tell you about a job they enjoy. Another avenue is working with artifacts from the past. It's easy to do when you're clerking in a used bookstore, thrift store, pawn shop or antique store. You'll learn to date things and appraise their value, both valuable skills. Though archival professionals generally work with paper records, not objects, there may be some items mixed in among the collections you'll be working with. One Midwestern library, for example, has an extensive grouping of toy soldiers because the donor specified they had to go with his collection of military histories. Artifacts add visual interest to museum and library exhibits. Is there an anniversary coming up in your community? Ohio celebrates its centennial of statehood in 2003. Maybe your school or church/temple is reaching a significant milestone. Look for ways to help, such as interviewing senior citizens who remember the early days. You might undertake research into the person for whom the school was named. Anniversary books are often published at these times. Working on these can be your introduction to historical editing, as you solicit historical materials and scan them into the computer and watch the layout take shape. Jot down a few notes for yourself as you're doing these activities. Then make some quiet time to think over the impressions you've formed and see if this kind of work might be a good fit for your life. Even before there were standard systems of writing, humans were keeping records. In 9000 BC, the Sumerians were tracking accounts with clay tokens. Later, as written languages developed, records were fixed onto papyrus, parchment, and wood blocks. Paper became the standard in Medi-eval Times. Early records were created and maintained by government authorities. One example is the results of a survey taken in 1085 by William the Conqueror, to find out what exactly was in his new kingdom. It was so thorough that it was likened to Doomsday, the Book of Judgment in the Bible, hence the name Domesday Book. It was used for centuries to assess taxes and settle ownership claims. When North America began to be explored and settled, the creators and types of records varied among the European groups. The Spanish missionaries in the Southwest were interested in the number and kind of sacraments administered. The French tallied sales by traders and fur trappers. The English were concerned about land sales, wills, and estates, anything that proved who owned property. The reasons for government archives in the Colonies came from both a practical and philosophical viewpoint. Government could keep records more safely than individuals could. Verifiable records protected citizens' legal rights and guarded against abuses. That's why there was such an emphasis in the Revolutionary War about "going on record" against the outrages of King George. County clerks, clerks of courts, and secretaries of state were the first American archivists and administrators. They didn't call themselves by those titles, but they were the ones who took care of old records as part of their jobs. Older documents usually took a back seat to the flood of current business, and there was little training in how to preserve or organize them. Another group about the same time was interested in records of the past. The heros of the Revolutionary War founded organizations, such as the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1791, to preserve the papers of the Founding Fathers. These societies searched for and preserved whatever they could find: letters, journals, articles, pamphlets. Employees of the societies were like the manuscript curators of today. The fact that they valued old papers promoted the idea that items that were useless for current purposes were nonetheless valuable for their insight into the past. As the collections grew, societies were concerned that fire or flood could destroy the material they'd worked so hard to acquire. They started transcribing and publishing them, in the process becoming historical editors. George Washington's letters, for example, were published in the 1830s. Then as now, much work went into

deciding what should be made available, accurately copying it, and providing explanatory notes. In the 1880s and 1890s history as a profession began to require higher standards. If you wanted to be a historian, you needed graduate education to learn how to use primary sources - the documents themselves, not works that had been written about them (secondary sources). The American Historical Association did some surveys in the late 1890s to determine what primary sources were available for scholars to study. It was embarrassing for survey recipients to say, "We don't know where our old records are and what shape they're in." State archives began to be created; Alabama was the first to do so, in 1901. The 1930s was the time when the notion of archival careers started taking shape. The first real generation of archivists was learning on the job as they set up the new state archives and National Archives and performed tasks at the Historical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). They came up with the concepts of record groups and record series, still used today. They also learned that these concepts could be applied to the records of businesses, religious groups, schools, and associations. The Society of American Archivists was founded in 1936 "for all who are or have been engaged in the custody or administration of archives or historical manuscripts." After World War II, many more archives were established, and employees began to specialize. That trend continued in the 1960s and 1970s, with national centers set up on concentrating on topics such as immigration, women's history and foreign affairs. Historians wanted to study ordinary people, not just the famous figures. Businesses began to see the value of mining their old material for PR and marketing; they set up in-house archives. More grants were available to film newspapers and other fragile materials. The 1980s brought widespread computer use. Archival professionals had to learn new technology and wrestle with questions of availability versus privacy, and permanency versus cost. Technological questions are continuing to evolve in the 21st century, but the basic mission of an archival career remains unchanged - to preserve and promote material of enduring value.

There are four types of jobs in the archival field: archivist, manuscript curator, historical editor, and administrator. To a certain extent they overlap, because knowledge of one position is necessary to perform the duties of another. Many times a person will have one job title but actually do the tasks associated with all four positions. Archivist & Manuscript Curator The title of archivist is generally used for a person who handles records generated by organizations or governments. The title of manuscript curator is used for someone who handles records of individuals or families, said to be in manuscript form. The job functions are essentially the same: acquiring the records, arranging them, and helping them to be used. Acquisition of the documents can be through voluntary donation or required by law. For example, states direct county clerks to send copies of marriage licenses to a central archive. When records are donated, the archivist's first step is to go through them and get a sense of what's there and if they mesh with the mission of the institution. This is called appraisal. If you decide to accept the records, you have to oversee their transportation, being careful that all the material you saw on site comes to your facility. You also have to do a legal transfer of ownership, so that your facility can make the records available to the public, and both sides agree about any restrictions on the material. For example, the special collections department of one university holds case files of a child welfare agency. The public may look at these files, but the names of the children cannot be recorded in any way or published by any means. Once the records are at your facility, arrangement is the next step. You arrange them according to the natural groupings that were made at the time the records were created. This is called the principle of provenance. A manuscript curator might group the papers of Eleanor Roosevelt into speeches, letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs. For government records, similar functions are grouped together. Say you are arranging the records of the state Department of Fish & Wildlife Management. Instead of having separate categories for fishing licenses, hunting licenses, and trapping licenses, you might group all licensing records together. In order to do effective arrangement, you have to study the person or organization that created the records. Then you go through each piece of paper to uncover the original order. It might be date order or number sequence or

alphabetical or thematic. Only if the records are totally random do you impose your own order on them. Processing follows after arrangement. This is when you put the records into folders and boxes and label them according to the arrangement you've decided on. While you are processing the material, you are taking steps to preserve it by doing things like flattening folded letters, removing rusting staples, and encapsulating fragile materials. Usually this is the only conservation work that is ever done, unless a generous bequest or grant is made for further preservation. The "Save America's Treasures" initiative by President Bill Clinton allotted funds for much-needed work. Description is the next step. You describe what the arrangement is and what years it covers and provide some background on what can be found in this particular collection or record group. Description can take the form of a card catalog, Web page, index, calendar (a list in chronological order), descriptive inventory, or list of box and folder contents. Deciding how your holdings can be easily located by users is an art in itself. How is this subject associated in people's minds? What cross--references should be used? The Library of Congress subject terms help to standardize the process. You may create different finding aids to allow easier access of the information. The Ellis Island Foundation recently put its database of passenger records online. It is easier for many people to search via computer than to use the Soundex system, an index created in the 1930s involving microfilmed cards which are small and hard to read. The final part of this job is outreach. It's no good to have beautifully organized records if no one knows about them and uses them. To get the word out, you send catalog information to national databases such as RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network) and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). You write guides known as pathfinders for patron use, as well as articles in professional journals for your peers. You network with colleagues at neighboring institutions to be aware of their holdings and policies, so you can refer patrons appropriately. You plan exhibits and programs, for scholars, teachers, and the general public. You speak to groups, give tours, make presentations at conferences. You suggest story ideas to journalists, and perhaps lend items to documentary makers. On any one day, you are usually working on outreach, description, arrangement, and acquisition simultaneously. That's what makes this job so interesting. Historical Editor This job picks up where archivist or manuscript curator leaves off. You have the records, you have the arrangement, you have the description. Your challenge is to bring the records to a wider audience through formats that can be studied beyond the walls of your institution: books, CD-ROMs, electronic archives, microforms (microfilm and microfiche), and other tools. For example, the History Department at New York University is working with the University of Illinois Press on a four-volume edition of selected documents pertaining to birth control advocate Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Selection is a big part of the job. Is your goal to publish all the papers or records, or just those that deal with a certain time period or topic? What would be most useful to scholars? The material selected must be annotated notes must be prepared that guide the reader to understanding. "This letter was written in 1937 in response to a query from a book reviewer about the characters of some of Ernest Hemingway's novels." "This photograph was taken at a dinner given by the Russian Consulate in Washington, DC on May 1, 1988." Once you've decided on what material to include, you have to decide on a format. You have budget and privacy concerns. You may want to put school records on the Web, but your state may have 99-year restrictions on persons other than the student seeing them. You may want to do color printing of historic maps, but you only have money for black and white. You then guide the production of the format. Depending on how many assistants you have, it means things like developing a schedule for publication, coming up with a title, and arranging for permission to use illustrations. You may ask an authority to write an introduction to the work, or you may do it yourself. You oversee the organization of the work, either in-house or using the services of a freelance designer. If you are at a small

institution, you may be responsible for the Web design or page layout. If you have decided to show the records in their original form, then they will have to be digitized or photographed. If they are being transcribed, you must be careful that the copy is accurate. In a handwritten letter, for instance, if a name is difficult to make out, you might use blanks for the doubtful letters. That way users can consult the original document and form an opinion for themselves. Fact checking and proofreading are very important. You are putting something out that is supposed to be historically accurate, and you do not want any embarrassing mistakes. An editor employed by a university press or history publisher works with authors who have already selected and compiled the documents. You need personal relations skills to be able to suggest improvements and to have writers meet deadlines. As with archivists and manuscript curators, you will find yourself working on many aspects of different projects at once. You will definitely not be bored. Administrator You can be an editor, archivist, or curator in a smaller organization and also be an administrator. Larger facilities usually make this job more concerned with policies and employee supervision than with hands-on work. When you administer a department or facility, there are many rules to enforce. You want to make sure your rare materials are not stolen or endangered. That's why archives don't allow materials to circulate outside the building or permit food and drink in the reading rooms. Staff members shelve materials and make photocopies. Briefcases and backpacks are searched upon leaving. You have to explain the reasons for these restrictions to the public, who are used to libraries with cafes and copiers on every floor. Setting an acquisition policy is another part of the administrator's job. You don't want to duplicate what another institution has. You want to collect in the areas you are known for, whether they are a certain kind of record (maps, broadsides) or from a certain group (Italian immigrants, labor leaders). Space and budget restrictions play a role in what you will accept. Planning is a top priority. Are you running out of storage space? Do you need special equipment to preserve your holdings? How do you maintain the reputation of your facility? Short and long range goals need to be formulated. Fundraising is another important responsibility. Even the National Archives has a trust fund that channels donations for equipment purchases and the like. You need to persuade trustees and other influential people to underwrite reference works, staff positions, maybe even a new building. Grant--writing ability is a good talent to have. With employees, you need human relations skills, especially if they are working under less than ideal conditions. Your enthusiasm and fairness will go a long way in preventing problems. Training according to the guidelines of your facility is likely to take up a good deal of your time.

Did you know that McDonald's has an archive? Jim Henson Productions has one, too. There are a whole host of places that you might not think of which keep historical records and need professionals to handle them. Corporations keep personnel records and financial records, of course, but they also keep samples of products and promotions. Coca-Cola, for instance, licenses its old artwork and creates new collectibles. Sears keeps copies of its mail-order catalogs, even though it no longer sells by catalog, as indications of what the American public bought in the past. Professional Associations The American Medical Association, for example, keeps a card file with over a million entries on physicians. It's considered such a valuable source of biographical information that it's been microfilmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Religious bodies also keep records on clergy and members. There are archives run by regional and national headquarters of denominations. These often include records of closed or merged congregations. There are also

archives for orders of nuns, brothers, and priests, which document the order's activities. Fraternal associations - Elks, Masons, Knights of Columbus - need to refer to membership records, particularly if there are insurance benefits for members. Associations also keep past issues of publications and recruiting materials. Artistic organizations, such as the Cleveland Symphony and the Metropolitan Opera, keep records of conductors, musicians, costume designs. Programming often hinges on anniversaries of an artist's or work's debut. Research firms, such as stock market analysts or the Gallup Organization, have in-house archives so they are able to compare current findings with historical data. Privately funded historic sites, such as Colonial Williamsburg, San Simeon, and Greenfield Village, all need archivists. Other sites are maintained by the National Park Service, such as the boyhood home of Martin Luther King, Jr in Atlanta. The places collect records pertaining to the construction of the buildings and alterations made over the years. Educational institutions want to boast about their famous alumni and faculty. They know that old photos of the campus help stimulate loyalty and contributions from reunion classes. They also need old blueprints and correspondence to refer to when they want to renovate buildings that date back to the founding of the institution. They certainly need to keep student records for transcript requests and employer checks. State and local governments employ many archival professionals. They maintain property records, voting records, tax records, vital statistics, records of the state legislature, licenses for healthcare workers and on and on. Wealthy and celebrated individuals' collections of unique material need professional attention. Yoko Ono, for example, administers the archive of John Lennon's recordings and artwork. Pop culture museums, which are hybrids of performing venues and research facilities. Places such as the Experience Music Project in Seattle and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland have the institution's own internal archives (concerning plans for the building, when items were acquired, exhibit plans and more), as well as material about the artists in their permanent collections. When you work for a newer facility like these, you help legitimatize the subjects of its holdings in the world's eyes. Your choices are many. You can pick a place that corresponds with one of your personal interests, be it music or architecture or literature. You can prefer no public contact, or a situation where you help a hundred patrons a month.

I'm a Manuscript Curator "Curators and archivists are about the same. We both work with unpublished records - acquiring them, arranging them, describing them, making them accessible. The difference is that manuscript curators work with papers accumulated by an individual or family group. The first thing you do with papers is to figure out what should be their order or structure. Papers of a company or institution are usually well organized, but the papers of individuals can come to us in shoe boxes or suitcases, everything usually in a big mess. One of my staffers worked on the Harold Washington collection - the former mayor of Chicago. You'd open a box and find a candy bar wrapper, a shoe, city documents, personal notes. Most people don't have the time or motivation to get their papers organized. You have to get a basic understanding of the person's life to be able to see the order out of chaos. Having a written history or biographical information is a good starting point. You keep going deeper and deeper, for example finding out what the person did during different periods of life, where he lived, what he kept and what he didn't. You get involved with a person's life as you study all the material. You either really like or sometimes grow to dislike the person. A major principle in my job is 'provenance' - keeping things in their original order. For example, if the president of a university corresponded with famous people, you would keep those letters in the letter file and not create a separate file of famous people letters. You have to demonstrate the relationship of the parts to the whole. If you take it apart, you lose the clues. It's different from library work, where you're not looking at individual items, you're looking at the big picture. The only exception to keeping things in their original order is if there is no order to the material. Then you have to come up with one that makes sense. There's a lot of detective work in this job - seeing the scope of the acquired material, figuring out how it fits together, that the photo album of travel pictures belongs with the travel journal. I like finding the little treasures along the way, things that haven't been opened for 50 years. It keeps you going through the tedious parts. Putting things in folders and labeling them can be pretty boring. Balancing the needs of donors and the public can be frustrating. Donors are often family members who see the person as an icon and don't want anything accessible that reflects badly on the person. They often want to keep letters closed for 50 or 75 years, because of comments about living people. Sometimes they want the papers reserved for a hand-picked biographer; with other scholars only getting access after the first writer is finished. This is not considered ethical in the archival profession; we can't show preference for one user over another. Even if we know that a user is planning a negative or critical book, we can't deny access. I've worked at places all over the country. I majored in history in college. I used the Rhode Island State Archives for my student papers and really liked it. When I went to graduate school in history, I used more archives, and it convinced me that I wanted a career in this field. I applied for a position at the Yale archives but didn't get it; I needed specialized training. I earned a graduate degree - Master of Science in Library and Information Sciences. My practicum (like lab in biology) was at a branch of the Rockefeller Foundation. After school I went to the Huntington Library in California. Now I'm at a similar research library in the Midwest. This is a good profession if you like to keep learning. You need to know about conservation, database management, budgeting, planning, and grant writing. Every day is different. You work with incredibly interesting material, and you meet interesting people." I'm a Historical Editor "I got into publishing through a fellowship program at the University of Oklahoma Press. That press no longer has the fellowship, but I believe the University of Texas Press has a similar one. I like practically everything about historical editing, being part of the process of getting good books published. It's a chance to work with strong scholars and good manuscripts. In a typical day, I'm reading manuscripts and getting readers for others. I'm soliciting submissions and preparing committee reports. You need communications skills for this job, both person to person and written. One way that you use those skills is having to turn down manuscripts by people you know. That's a part of the job I don't like. People with quite different personalities have been good at this job. I don't see this job changing much as the

methods of publication change. Experience is preferred but many of the best editors have come at it from various directions. Most are liberal arts majors, but not necessarily in history. Take whatever courses are offered in or related to publishing. Get a foot in the door in any kind of job at a local university press if there is one at your school. Most jobs are in the big cities, especially New York, but university presses and other regional publishers often offer the best opportunities to get into the field." I'm an Archivist/Administrator "After earning a college degree in history, I realized that I wanted to pursue a field in which I would work with history and people. So I found a graduate school program that offered broad-based public history training (historic preservation, museum studies, archives administration). I chose archives over the other options because I felt the employment field would be the most stable, as many types of institutions have archives (corporations, universities, historical societies, government, and so on). I acquired the professional training (a master's degree and practical experience in the field), then decided that I wanted to work in a particular city, and began a job search. I found this particular position open, applied, and was hired. I work at a small university founded by Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century. The archives include the records of the university, the records of the religious denomination associated with the university, and records pertaining to this particular ethnic group in this city. I would recommend this field for someone with a passion for history and providing information services to others. It helps to be very self-motivated and able to work without needing direct supervision. You have a variety of responsibilities and work with a variety of people. So you need communications skills and public relations skills. Often, no one knows what it is that you actually do. You have to explain to others and promote the value of your job. I find that the general mission of documenting our cultures and ensuring that this record is available in the future is very rewarding work. Besides people skills, you need technical skills, in information science and computers. The archival field is changing because our culture has changed the way it communicates and uses information. More records are computer generated. We will increasingly be preserving these electronic records and making them accessible for documenting people. Start now to get versed in different computer systems. Stay abreast of developments in software. You also need an understanding and interest in methods of research. Study fields which are research-based in high school and college. Look for volunteer positions and internships working with records. They will help you decide what area you want to focus on in graduate school. You will need a master's degree in information and library science, and often a second master's degree as well. Leaders in the archival profession are developing a master's degree in Archival Administration." I'm the Curator of Local and Family History at a Library "I head up one department in a large research library. My area encompasses genealogy and local history for the United States, the British Isles, and Canada. We help people find out more about their ancestors, both in person and through e-mail and phone queries. Our patrons are from all different states and foreign countries. Working at the reference desk is one of the things I like most - working with people, figuring out their problems. There's also a rich intellectual environment at the library, with seminars, public programs, colloquiums. I like the people I work with, not just in my own department, but all the other interesting areas. My path to this job started by majoring in history in college. Then I went to graduate school and got a dual degree in library science and history. Some people see a big distinction between librarians and archivists, but there really are many things in common. Many institutions often have both rare books and archives overseen by the same person. Whether you're an archivist or librarian, you're making information available to users, you're just dealing in different formats. I had worked at a historical society as assistant to the director and coordinator of volunteers. I had thought I would be able to continue once I started graduate school, but after one semester, I couldn't keep up. I did enjoy that job. I was one of a handful of staff people and no one was in charge of the archives, so I became the staff researcher, answering the letters looking for information. Eventually, I took a job closer to where I was going to school, in an urban archives. I worked at the reference desk and with archival materials. Both of these experiences made me want to focus on archives for my career.

I applied all over the country my last semester in school. Most of the archives openings were far away. This library replied very quickly, so by the time I was doing second interviews here, I was just hearing from the other places. I thought it would be interesting to work here, and it fit with my background in local history. It was close to my parents as well, and my mom was seriously sick. It turned out to be a very good decision. I started out as a librarian split between this department and general reference. I did four hours on the reference desk every day. Six months after I started, the full-time librarian in local and family history resigned and moved to Florida. I applied for and got that position at the end of the year. Then, the following summer, the curator of the department died unexpectedly. He had been there 15 years and taught me a lot. I still miss him. I had to take over more and more of his duties, and other people encouraged me to apply for the curatorship. So that's how I got to be where I am now. What I do as curator is a mix of administrative and people tasks. Outreach is really important, I put a lot of time into acting as an ambassador for the library. I give presentations at genealogical conferences, and tours for groups of researchers. I also interact with donors, since we are privately funded. We've started a genealogy group here that helps raise funds. Sometimes I go to people's houses to evaluate materials they are considering donating. Collection development is another main focus. Being on the reference desk helps me see what materials patrons are using. Maybe we need to buy more copies of a particular resource, or get something that other genealogical libraries have. Keeping up with reprints is important, seeing what new information has been added. I like the intellectual aspect of ordering decisions. Web site development is time-consuming. The library only started its site and computer catalog a couple of years ago, and there are still kinks to be worked out. We only have 15% of the card catalog online. I am working to put more lists and guides on our site to increase the use of our holdings. I schedule the department staff and do hiring and training. I'm fortunate that I haven't had many staff issues. You have to be diplomatic, just as you have to be with patrons. Genealogists take things personally; you have to be careful not to offend them or squash their hopes. I used to be very frazzled at the end of my shift on the reference desk. Now it doesn't faze me as much. I have had people yelling when they came in the door and continue yelling at me. I've also had a person trap me at the desk and talk at me for half an hour when I needed to be doing other things. In that case, I realized she would get more upset if she wasn't listened to, so I listened and she eventually went away. One thing I don't have to deal with here is unruly children, since we don't allow users under age 16. Meetings are my least favorite part of the job. Some days I go from one meeting to the next, without getting any of my other work done. Much time is spend writing reports and keeping statistics. I don't think jobs like mine will change too much 20 years from now. Technology skills will be more important, because there will be more electronic delivery of information and more digitizing of content. Current records are in electronic format and will be given to libraries in the future, so you will have to know how to access them. But you'll still need a feeling for history and people skills, guiding users to where they want to go."

If you have a wide variety of interests, you are well suited for an archival career. A library or archive may seem like a quiet place on the outside, but there's a lot going on. You're moving from a patron question to a board meeting to sorting through a box of donated material. The ability to multi-task is critical. When you're doing so many things at once, you need to organize your time well. Set priorities and delegate tasks so you can complete arrangement and description of materials in a timely manner. When it's a massive amount of material, you need to make the case for additional staff or grants. You must like getting your hands around complex issues - formulating the big picture and then breaking it down to usable pieces. It takes analytical ability and the patience to wade through mounds of paper, making the connections along the way. You must genuinely care who made the records, why they were made, and how they

relate to each other. A sense of curiosity and discovery sees you through the stretches of routine records. You must love detail. Determining the best arrangement of historic documents often sends you off to study background like the laws that mandated the creation of these records. You will probably become so experienced that you will be able to spot fake documents just on the basis of the handwriting or type of paper. You need to adhere to a high standard of ethics. If you don't allow patrons to use pens when they work with the records, you shouldn't either. If material is restricted, it's restricted to everyone, including your friend who is working on her dissertation. You should be honest with potential donors about how their records will be housed and used, even if that means you may lose the records to another institution. Don't pressure scholars to publish favorable works about the subject of your manuscript collection, though you may think the person was the greatest individual who ever lived. As an archival professional, you leave the interpretation and judgement to others. Communications skills are important. You're writing and showing patrons how to retrieve the information they need. You're also working with interns, volunteers, vendors, donors and administrators, each of whom must be treated a certain way. As one professional says, "This is not a refuge from the modern world." Physically, you need good eyesight to read handwritten documents and poorly microfilmed items. You should also be tolerant of dust and mold. Many of the characteristics needed for archival careers are the ones you would need for careers in anthropology, archeology, genealogy, or zoology. Think about whether you want to work with people or papers, animals or artifacts. Your self-knowledge and exploration will guide you to a career that's right for you.

Archival professionals have very high job satisfaction. You have a front row seat on history, working with items created by real people that give you a connection to their thoughts and feelings. To hold a letter that went in a Pony Express mailbag, or listen to a recording of a former slave, can give you the chills. And you are finding fascinating tidbits every day: a newpaper columnist in 1889 speculating about life in 2000; scalper-like prices for Jenny Lind concert tickets; the name of an early New Englander being Preserved Fish. Helping users can be very gratifying. When you are an archivist, administrator, or manuscript curator, you often deal with patrons who have come great distances because your collections are unique, and they are very grateful for your assistance. To provide the scholar with material for a thesis or the genealogist with proof of relationships is a great service. When you are a historical editor, you have the satisfaction of bringing the material to the patrons. The ideas in the sources you publish can change whole ways of thinking. Declassified documents about the Yalta conference, for example, have shed new light on Franklin Roosevelt's dealings with Joseph Stalin. To have your collections used justifies their being preserved. In this field, there is the satisfying feeling of bringing order out of chaos. You take masses of material and determine a structure for them and enable them to be used, not just rot away in some moldy basement. Government archivists and administrators feel strongly that their holdings were created with taxpayer monies and should be available to those same taxpayers. To preserve some small significant pieces of the past, when so much is tossed away in our disposable society, is an honorable goal. The only way to learn from the past is to study what has been done before. And if there is nothing to study, then how can we as a people understand the causes of problems today and take steps to correct them? By saving what they do, archival professionals help society learn and grow.

Preserving inanimate objects lacks the emotional connection of feeding hungry children or finding a cure for cancer. This career also lacks the influence and financial security of business. Public awareness and donations

are lower for archival institutions and result in low budgets, both in the public and private sector. You may have to eat your lunch in a break room with peeling paint and hand-me-down furniture. You may have to break pencils in half and duct tape your microfilm machine together. Your office space has to adapt to the old building it's in; quarters are frequently dim, drafty, and dusty. When the economy is down generally, archives are not seen as essential and are often closed by businesses and other organizations. What happens to the collections? Are they sold to private collectors, making them inaccessible to the public? Are they donated to other institutions, overburdening the staffs at those places? Are they simply put out in the trash? Whatever happens is a heartbreak for the professionals who have cared for them. The time needed to fully arrange and describe records can be daunting. The Vatican Archives, for example, has been criticized for not releasing World War II records. The staff has only gotten to the 1890s in holdings that date back to the time of Constantine. One can easily spend one's whole career on the papers of one individual. Historical editors at least get some publicity about their latest work. Archivists, administrators and manuscript curators must stand by and watch as authors like David McCullough garner praise for books based on the sources they made available. National Archives employees can't even copyright the publications they write about their holdings, since federal government publications are excluded from protection. Technology is a headache and source of anxiety. Does this application or hardware do what is promised? What effect does it have on the documents, now and a century from now? Will it turn out to be the Beta or 8-track of the archival profession? Will anybody have the equipment and supplies to retrieve the material in the future?

The path to an archival career starts in college. You need a broad knowledge of the humanities and liberal arts in addition to history. If you focus exclusively on history, you may lose out on contextual knowledge of topics such as art and music and social science that will help you understand records you may be working with later on. Get all the computer training you can. Know how to use search engines, do downloads, write HTML code. Scanning is an important skill, since fragile and frequently used materials are being digitized. Black and white text takes different settings than color photos. Know the pros and cons of different storage media; subscribe to a computer magazine. Evaluate your user experience in the computer lab and library at school. Think of how it can be improved. Graduate School The first generation of archival professionals learned by doing. They brought their skills as historians or librarians to their new jobs. Those skills are still important today. A master's degree in history or library science or both is a prerequisite in the field. Many employers also look for a graduate degree in the specialty of the facility (for example, Colonial history of Virginia; labor movement in the Midwest). Though the Society of American Archivists has been advocating for an MAS (Masters of Archival Studies) degree, no college or university currently offers it. Some have joint programs that allow you to obtain an MA in history and an MLS (Master of Library Science) at the same time. Some have the MLS with a specialty in archives. A few offer certificate programs in archival management, taken after you obtain an MA or MLS. These are the schools currently listed on the Society of American Archivists' directory of archival education: ●

University of California, Los Angeles

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Loyola University (IL)

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Louisiana State University

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University of Maryland

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Simmons College, Massachusetts

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University of Michigan

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Columbia University

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Long Island University

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New York University

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Pratt University

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St.John University

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State University of New York, Albany

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University of Pittsburgh (PA)

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Temple University

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University of South Carolina

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Western Washington University

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University of British Columbia

Library school or certificate training teaches you the theory and practice of cataloging and indexing. For example, you will learn MARC:amc (Machine Readable Cataloging, Archives and Manuscripts Control format). This is a computer format that enables many different types of repositories to describe their holdings in a standard way so they can be used on one computer system. SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) is another electronic means of making primary sources available. You'll study preservation principles in graduate school, not just for paper documents, but also for audio and visual formats. Sound recordings, for example, have evolved from Thomas Edison's wax cylinders to 78s, LPs, 8-track tapes, cassettes, Cds, and MP3 digital files. All the obsolete formats need to be preserved so the music and voices of the past can be retrieved. Other courses concentrate on practices and problems in historical editing, legal and ethical issues, records management, and administration. You need to know the basics of budgeting and planning, hiring and training employees. Lifetime Education Your professional learning does not stop after you get your degrees. You'll be attending conferences and workshops, some from vendor technology companies, some from organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Many archivists choose to become certified through the Academy of Certified Archivists. It involves passing an examination and periodically being re-certified. It shows employers that you are serious about your career and are up to date on professional practices and standards.

Because the types of archival facilities vary so much, there is a corresponding variation in pay. Small historic sites and religious organizations are on the low end of the scale. Governments (city, county, state, federal) are in the mid-range and often have attractive benefits, such as pension plans and subsidized cafeterias. Academic settings offer opportunities to earn extra money teaching and to take classes at reduced cost. The highest salaries are for repositories with significant endowments, such as major research universities and private foundations. As in many other careers, you should expect to start at a lesser rate and work your way higher. The more responsibility you have and the more people working under you, the more you will earn. This is true even if the people you supervise are volunteers. With the emphasis on continuing education in this field, you are constantly adding to your resume. Mid-size and larger institutions will have funds for staff development or tuition reimbursement. When you show that you have added value to what you can do for your employer, you are likely to get a raise.

Earnings for archival professionals (excluding historical editors) range from $20,000 to $70,000. Most workers make between $30,000 and $50,000. Editors have a range between $25,000 to $85,000. Most make between $35,000 and $60,000. Some examples from recent ads: ● ● ●

Senior assistant manuscript curator, $42,575 Assistant archivist, $30,000 Project archivist (two-year position), $37,500

These figures allow you to make a comfortable living. The pay is not as great as some business or professional careers, but money is not the prime motivator in this field.

The archival field is a small one; employers are not on every street corner like fast food restaurants. There are about 25,000 jobs in the entire career. Though there will be some openings due to lateral moves and retirements, average growth is predicted for the foreseeable future. There will be opportunities as media conglomerates look for content for television, newspaper, magazine, and Webcast outlets. Affordable digitization will interest organizations who want to make their holdings more productive but don't know what they have. Archives and libraries will seek out staff to deal with the challenges of late 20th-century records, created on a crazy quilt of computer hardware and software. Consumers increasingly want archival storage and guidance for family memorabilia. You may start out in a technician position, with tasks like data entry or registering patrons. If you want to be a historical editor, being a fact checker may be your first stop. Then you would work at places giving you ever-greater responsibility. Plan on getting further training or degrees throughout your career. Many places want you to have a master's degree in the subject area you'll be working with. If your ambition as an administrator is to be the director of a facility, you will probably need to get a PhD or other doctoral degree. Recognize that many intelligent people want to work in this field. It attracts those in detail-oriented occupations such as education, healthcare, and law. Be prepared for competition.

Your path as a professional starts in graduate school. Professors and guest lecturers work in the field and are familiar with a wide circle of institutions. Ask them if they know of any openings. Even temporary, grant--funded positions can be a stepping stone to full-time status. Check in with your school's placement service frequently. Make sure it has updated copies of your résumé every time you have something to add. The internship/practicum you do during graduate school can often lead to employment. If your work is good and you get along well with your colleagues, you should have an inside track. Even if budgetary reasons prevent you from joining the staff, the contacts you make can lead to a position elsewhere. Join an association in the area of the field where you want to be. Student rates are usually offered. Job openings will be posted on the association's Web site or advertised in its publication. Serving on committees raises your profile and lets you network with well--known people in the field. Attend regional and national conferences. You'll meet people employed at many different institutions who can tell you what it's like to work there. You can ask questions of the presenters, who are often the people with hiring responsibility, and impress them with your knowledge and enthusiasm. It's a big advantage in answering a job posting to be able to say, "I really enjoyed your talk at the annual meeting."

Know about the archival facilities in your area, or the area in which you'd like to relocate. Do more than just tour them, use them. Evaluate their needs and figure out how you can fulfill them. When you take the time to learn about a place where you want to work, it allows you to speak with authority and boosts your confidence in an interview. The person who is doing the hiring is looking for someone who is familiar with the institution and does not require much training. Don't be discouraged if the place you want to work at isn't hiring just now. Staffers transfer, move, retire, leave for personal reasons. While you're waiting for an opening, bulk up your résumé with related work. It always helps to show samples of what you've done. Maybe you can publish your ancestor's Civil War diary. Or do a descriptive inventory of Aunt Esther's correspondence. Volunteer or part-time work at a historic house museum or government archive can enhance your employment potential. The more effort you put into a job search, the faster you will find something. Do your homework, put the word out, and be confident that a richly rewarding career is on the horizon. Listed below are some prominent trade associations: ● Academy of Certified Archivists ●

American Association for State and Local History

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Association of Canadian Archivists

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Australian Society of Archivists

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International Council on Archives

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Mid-Atlantic Regional Archivists Conference

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Midwest Archives Conference

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Society of American Archivists

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Society of Georgia Archivists

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Center for Research Libraries

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National Archives and Records Administration

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New York City Municipal Archives

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Northeast Documentary Conservation Center

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Smithsonian Institution

Listed below are some trade periodicals ●

The American Archivist

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Archival Issues

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Archivaria

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Documentary Editing

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History News

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Oral History Review

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Provenance

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Public Historian Careers Research Monographs Copyright 2006 by The Institute For Research CHICAGO