VII European Conference on Archives Warszawa, May 18-20, 2006 Archivist: Profession of the Future in Europe

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VII European Conference on Archives
                            Warszawa, May 18-20, 2006
                    Archivist: Profession of the Future in Europe

Dr Elizabeth Shepherd, University College London (e.shepherd@ucl.ac.uk)

Is archives and records management a profession for practitioners or an academic
discipline?

The theme of this session is archivistics as a scientific discipline. It seeks to ask questions
about where an archivist should be positioned between the academic and the professional
fields, whether research is a fundamental part of the professional’s work and what
‘research’ in a professional context really means. This paper will consider some aspects
of these questions. First, is archives and records management a profession, or, if you
prefer, are archivists and records managers professionals? Using an analytical framework
developed through a study of the English archive profession, I will attempt to answer this.
Secondly, is archives and records management an academic discipline, comparable with
other scientific and humanities subjects studied in universities? In answering this
question, I will look at the role of teaching and research in the present and future
development of archives and records management and consider some ways in which
research, in particular, could better interact with the practising profession.

Is archives and records management a profession?

Sociologists have studied professions and professionalism, seeking to define the meaning
and concept of a profession. They identified attributes in the increasing
professionalisation of work, such as higher levels of skill and specialisation, the growth
of standards, the spread of certification, and the development of roles commanding
prestige and respect.1 ‘Process models’ identified key stages in the process of
professionalisation, such as the establishment of a professional association, a change of
name for the work group to give it separate identity, the development of a code of ethics,
the enactment of legal restrictions and establishment of training.2 Building on
sociological models, I developed an analytical framework for the English archive
profession. My framework focuses on four key themes:
    1. political engagement and legislation.
    2. a complex and distinct work group.
    3. an exclusive professional organisation. and
    4. appropriate archival education and development.

1
 R M Pavalko (1988) Sociology of occupations and professions 2nd ed. Itasca, IL: Peacock Publishers.
2
 T Caplow (1954) The sociology of work Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
H Wilensky (1964) ‘The professionalization of everyone?’ American Journal of Sociology 70.
My analysis of the English archives and records management work group suggested that
significant progress has been made towards professionalism, but that there is work still to
be done. Historically, archives struggled to attract the attention of legislators and policy
makers. There was tension between the social value of records to ensure the proper
functioning of justice and the courts and their scholarly and historical values. 3 By the
early 21st century the historical aspects of archives were accepted as a significant
contribution to community identity and social inclusion agendas, while the legal and
accountability aspects were seen as essential to the proper functioning of information
legislation (data protection and freedom of information). Even so, the UK has no
legislation to ensure the proper management and preservation of archives and records of
bodies outside central government.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, archivists were not a recognised work group and there
were no professional standards, systems or continuity between the Public Record Office
(as it then was) and local archive offices. The work of archivists became distinct from
that of academic historians, antiquarians and record agents in the period 1900-1960. A
new sub-group of records managers emerged in the 1970s, followed by digital specialists
in the 1990s. Are all these groups part of one profession? The National Archives (TNA)
recently began to provide professional leadership and coherence across the domain, with
the potential for bringing these groups together in a single profession.

Two significant markers of emerging professionalism began in England in 1947:
university qualifications in archives and a separate professional body, the Society of
Archivists. If archivists are to form a single profession they need an exclusive
organisation which establishes standards of practice and ethics, builds gateways to entry,
lobbies to protect the profession, defines the training and education required and engages
with policy makers. In England, there are several bodies with interests in different aspects
of archives and records management, each with different objects and membership
(although often overlapping with each other).

Archival education sets parameters for professional work, defines the range of the
profession, provides a gateway and a barrier to entry and lays the foundations for career
development. Unlike other countries, England has never had a national training school.
Instead, archival programmes emerged in universities and provided a remarkably
consistent qualification for archivists over several decades. Seven Masters-level
programmes are now offered in the UK.

This analysis suggests that archives and records management, at least in England, is an
emerging profession, not yet fully formed but well on the way to the plateau of
stabilization. It is a practitioner profession rather than one driven by theory: archivists
and records managers are primarily service providers. In my view, archives and records
management is a profession for practitioners. This brings us to the second question:

3
 The first Public Record Office Act 1838 addressed only central legal and court records. However, the PRO
quickly recognised the need to manage departmental records of central government and became an
historically-focused organisation: its professional staff were professional historians rather than professional
archivists.
Is archives and records management an academic discipline?

The short answer is, yes, of course, why not? Compared with other scientific and
humanities disciplines, such as history or computer science, archives and records
management has much to be recommend it.

Graduate programmes in archives have been available for 60 years in UK universities.4
Archives and records management is also taught at undergraduate level, although unlike
many other disciplines undergraduate teaching is a minor part of the provision. Higher
research degrees are available at five universities. The taught programmes are subject to
twin accreditation: once by higher education authorities to ensure academic soundness,
and again by the professional body to ensure professional rigour and scope, since they are
both academic qualifications and preparation for professional practice. Other highly
respected academic disciplines are subject to similar auditing, for example architecture,
medicine, and engineering.

Unlike many other disciplines, archival educators were originally either practitioners or
were academics in allied disciplines, such as diplomatics. The limitations of this approach
became apparent in the 1980s when several of the university programmes struggled to
accommodate new aspects. Some academics did not have the understanding of archives
as a discipline, which is normally developed through research, while the practitioners did
not have the time, or understanding of university structures and politics. Universities
responded by appointing professionals to academic positions in the 1990s, providing the
capacity to renew the teaching. However, the professionals then had to develop the
capabilities and qualifications in research which universities expect. Ensuring the supply
of suitably skilled and qualified academic staff to renew the capacity of the academic
pool is a critical issue for the future.

Partly as a result of the staffing arrangements, UK universities developed research
activities in archives and records management fairly gradually. The first substantive
professional research was undertaken by Michael Cook at Liverpool in the 1980s, in
archival description. Later, UCL developed LEADERS, a web-based demonstrator
system for encoded archival finding aids. Liverpool and Northumbria have been
successful in practice-based research, such as assessing the impact of the international
standard for records management, ISO 15489. Glasgow University is making use of its
expertise in digital preservation in projects such as the Electronic Resource Preservation
and Access Network (erpanet) and the Digital Curation Centre. In addition, there is a
steady stream of PhD students, mainly recruited from overseas.

Universities define research fairly narrowly, as ‘original investigation undertaken in order
to gain knowledge and understanding’.5 Much of the activity which an archivist might
4
  The teaching of archives in universities was preceded by the development of allied historical disciplines.
Palaeography began as an adjunct to historical research in London University in 1896 but became an
established discipline with a university chair; the first lectureship in diplomatic was appointed in Oxford in
1897; local history emerged as a separate School at Liverpool in 1902; librarianship was taught from 1902
at the London School of Economics, and in 1919 transferred to UCL.
5
  RAE (2006) RAE 2008 Panel criteria and working methods http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2006/01/
consider to be research and which clearly makes use of research outputs, such as
description, appraisal, and standards development, would not usually qualify as academic
research.

Few countries have achieved critical mass in research in archives and records
management: there are a very few research groups of international reputation, none in the
UK. We are a long way short of a coherent national, let alone international, strategic
approach to research and we have not yet established a clear profile for the academic
discipline. Does this matter? I think that it does: where are the new ideas to come from,
how can the discipline assimilate and respond to environmental shifts, how can we
progress intellectually as a profession if we do not develop new insights and use
knowledge in experimental development?

How can we improve the quality and quantity of research in archives and records
management? There are several issues which need to be addressed. We need to define the
scope of the discipline and the priorities for research and establish this profile with
funding bodies and auditors of research outputs. We need to establish the respective roles
of academics and professionals (and of universities and of archives) and provide
mechanisms and funding for both to share ideas and skills and to work collaboratively.
We need to consider the career paths of academics and professionals and see how far they
can coincide. We need to improve the dissemination of research and, in particular, to look
at the interaction between dissemination mechanisms used by academics as providers of
research output and those used by professionals to inform their professional practice. We
also need to develop research methodologies that are robust and appropriate for our
discipline.

Several UK universities are establishing research groups for archives and records
management.6 At UCL, ICARUS was established in 2005, in recognition of the need to
develop a significant body of research which seeks to identify, understand and meet the
rapid technological and intellectual changes now sweeping through the archives and
records management discipline. The Centre’s areas of activity include the impact of
information policy (data protection, freedom of information, national archives and
records legislation) and e-government on archives and records management services; the
needs of archives and records management service users, both onsite and online; and the
development of research methodologies for the discipline.

At Northumbria University a Records Management Research Group, led by Julie
McLeod, has been established for some years. One of its key projects is to assess the
impact of ISO 15489, to investigate which kinds of organisations have adopted the
standard, how and why and to explore the extent to which standards influence
management practice and behaviour.

Recently the UK arts and humanities research council funded a network (ARMReN) for
two years.7 It seeks to establish archives and records management as an academic
discipline and will link academics in the discipline of archives and records management,
6
    A list of universities offering programmes in archives and records management is in the Appendix.
other researchers who use archives and records and the professionals who manage
records. It will collect and disseminate information about research projects in the theory
and practice of the management, preservation and accessibility of records, foster the
development of young academic researchers in the discipline, act as a central point for
the exchange of ideas and encourage new collaborative partnerships, not only within the
UK but in Europe and the wider world. Based at UCL, the Network will closely involve
the academic community, represented in the UK Forum for Archives and Records
Management Education and Research (FARMER), which in turn has links both with the
North West European Archival Educators Network and the International Council on
Archives Section on Archival Education.

Conclusion
In conclusion, archives and records management is a well established area of practice in
the UK and has many of the attributes required by a profession, including a level of
political engagement, a distinct work group, professional organisations and appropriate
educational opportunities. Teaching of archives is well developed in universities and is
widely available, including through distance learning. Programmes range from
information and records management to digital preservation to historical archives.
Research capacity is still limited: there has been significant recent improvement in UK
universities, but we still lack critical mass, strategic focus and many of the infrastructures
needed to embed research activity. Academics and professionals need to work together in
partnership to develop research as a critical component of future professional
improvement.

7
 Archives and records management research network (ARMReN): http://www.slais.ucl.ac.uk/research-
ARMReN
The ARMReN project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for two years
(2006-2007) to help develop research in the discipline of archives and records management. ARMReN is
run by the Principal Investigator, Dr Elizabeth Shepherd , together with Co-investigators, Miss Elizabeth Danbury (UCL)
 and Ms Jaqueline Spence (University of Wales,
Aberystwyth).
Appendix: UK Universities offering programmes in archives and records
management

FARMER (Forum for Archives and Records Management Education and Research
for the UK and Ireland): http://www.liv.ac.uk/lucas/FARMER/index.htm
Activities include: Developing the 21st Century Professional: a learning continuum for
archivists and records managers A two day conference at the University of Wales,
Aberystwyth,                13-15             June               2006:             see
http://www.liv.ac.uk/lucas/FARMER/Aber_2006_call.doc

University College Dublin : http://www.ucd.ie/archives/

Dundee University: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/archives/

Glasgow University: http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/imp/
Erpanet (2004) at http://www.erpanet.org/
Digital Curation Coalition (2005) at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

Liverpool          University        Centre         for        Archival         Studies:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/lucas/index.htm

University                                 of                               Northumbria:
http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/faculties/art/information_studies/Imri/rarea/rm/rmresearc
h.htm.

University College London, School of Library, Archive and Information Studies:
http://www.slais.ucl.ac.uk/
LEADERS (2003) (Linking Encoded Archival Description to Electronically Retrievable
Sources) at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leaders-project/, accessed 03/07/05.
ICARUS (2006) (International Centre for Archives and Records Management Research
and User Studies) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais-research/icarus/
ARMReN (2006-2007) (Archives and records management research network
(ARMReN): http://www.slais.ucl.ac.uk/research-ARMReN

University of Wales, Aberystwyth: http://www.dil.aber.ac.uk/
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