Second cousins - Librarians and Archivists

While we are on the subject of different professions (see last post), let's consider the differences between librarians and archivists.  If archivists and records managers are first cousins, then archivists and librarians are second cousins.  Both can and do work in libraries, but with different materials and a different approach to that material.   Archivists tend to be in the Special Collections section of a library.  They deal with collections of papers, that is, primary documentation, which is unpublished. Librarians deal almost exclusively with secondary documentation, that is, published material. Both disciplines are in the information providing business, but they go about making that information accessible in different ways.  Librarians catalog and archivists write finding aids that may be on line but not necessarily catalogued.  All that said, many jobs for archivists require a library degree and most library programs provide at least one course in archival management.  Like I said, second cousins.

The disconnect between archivists and librarians comes with the implementations of original order and provenance.  In case you missed it, provenance is keeping collections together and not mixing them with other collections. Original order requires finding the underlying structure that a creator had for his papers and maintaining that.  Archivists are fanatical about maintaining both principles.  Generally for librarians neither principle is important.  Nor should it be because published material is different.  Can you imagine trying to catalogue every single piece of paper in a collection of 10,000 letters? It would be job security I suppose, but nothing would ever get finished or be available for the public.  In the past archivists have inventoried every item, but today inventories are done to the box or file level not the item one.  Besides an inventory is simpler than cataloguing.  Can you imagine trying to fit all those papers into the proper category?  There goes your original order.  A further difference between archivists and librarians is that archivists are in the preservation business.  In the past, archivists focused on preservation for future generations as their most important task, viewing the items more like museums do than most libraries.   Most archivists today would tell you that both are equally important - preservation and information.  In libraries, except for rare books or important first editions, most publications can either be replaced or they become so outdated they just need to be recycled. Besides now Google or someone has digitized many of them so preservation of most common published material is even less important.

The bottom line of all of that is that librarians should be aware of how an archivist works and archivists should have knowledge of library science.  That’s particularly important for librarians working in small institutions that have archives, but no archivists.  Understanding when provenance and original order take precedence over cataloguing is the key.

Records managers and archivists

Do you know the difference between a records manager and an archivist? An  archivist can be records manager and records managers can be archivists, but they are separate distinctly different professions – more like close first cousins than identical twins.  The Society of American Archivists is open to both, but each profession has its own certification examination and its own committees. Here’s the difference. A records manager is specifically tasked with the maintenance of records from creation to disposal for a specific entity, like a university, corporation, or other business or non-profit group.  Records managers are also the ones that keep the records of state and the federal governments.  Think of the name of NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration.  Certification for records managers is very rigorous and involves a different set of expertise than that required of a special collections archivist.  A records manager working with the different departments in their organization sets retention schedules (determining what to save, when to save it, how long to keep it, and what gets transferred to the archives and when and how it is to be accessed.)  Laws mandate some records retention. Examples are employee records or student records held by schools, birth and death records by municipal authorities, or tax and financial records of corporations. For a description of records management see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_management

An archivist generally handles collections of papers or photographs, maps, and even memorabilia donated by someone to a library or archive. Archivists can and do actively solicit donations from individuals whose papers meet their mission.  They are primarily responsible for the organization, accessibility, and preservation of all of those papers.  Generally an archivist is not responsible for the retention aspect of records keeping for an institution although sometimes they can be responsible for the housing of the papers of members of their institutional community, like professors of a college or the papers of the college president.

That said some archivists are the records managers for their institution especially for smaller organizations.  One thing that I would recommend for archivists who double as records managers is that you establish a clear set of policies for record retention for your institution.  You will need to meet with the different departments to determine what documentation they routinely keep, for how long, and where and how they keep it.  Together you can establish policies directing where and what and when to transfer those papers to your archive.  I’d also recommend establishing policies for the organization of the material to be transferred otherwise you will be sorting through boxes of unidentified photographs and notes like I have.  There are all sorts of examples of records management policies on line for various types of institutions.

What happens if you don’t?  One of the institutions that I work for was faced with just that challenge.  They had no set policies for retention.  So when one of the main buildings on campus was slated for renovation, several administrative departments brought boxes and boxes of papers and photographs to the library.  To make matters worse, one of the departments had one of its personnel retire.  Unfortunately that individual was one of those people who can’t throw anything away so…..  In her boxes of unorganized papers were receipts with the change for the purchase still attached, sticky notes of phone numbers of unidentified individuals, pencils, rulers – you name it.  In other words, filing cabinets and desks were simply dumped into boxes.  We got through it all, but it would have been be so much easier for all concerned if a clear institutionwide records management system was in place.

Typical messy box

Someone else told me another horror story. It concerns the papers of an important person who retired from an institution.  His staff, really trying to be helpful, scanned all of his documents and then shredded the originals along with the organizational structure of the files.  The scans were on one computer that had been retired, but retained.  No copies or back-ups were made to anyone’s knowledge.  Now that’s a scenario for disaster.  I have no idea how that turned out, but if the institution had policies of what and how to retain material the threat of loss could have been averted.  Scanning is fine, but there has to be a clear policy of how to name the files and what to save, in what format and with what backup. Otherwise technological changes will leave them inaccessible and lack of any file structure will severely limit their searchability.

I’m sure every archivist or records manager has similar stories.  You need a plan to which everyone agrees with clear steps for systemized organization.  Hopefully you can convince your organization to do that.  If you are just an individual with papers and digital files, you also need to have a plan for what to save and in what format to save it.  You should organize it in files to make it easier for you to find that one piece of paper you need, rather than have it lost in one of several paper stacks.  Everyone needs to be a records manager.

Website

Well, I gave up on Dreamweaver. One of my fellow workers convinced me that my time was better spent doing something more fun. I hate to admit defeat, but there it is. I turned to WIX.com and had my new website up in two days.  It is now up on line and I’m pretty proud of it. Check it out at wtxmuseumconsult.com.  Wix is a really user-friendly web design program.  It helped to expedite the process that I had most of the site designed in Dreamweaver and could readily adapt that to Wix, but the programming in Wix made it very easy to adapt.  My one complaint is that I couldn’t get to the code to tweak it.   Anyway I’m pretty proud of the website and plan to keep adding or modifying it to keep it relevant.  If you have any suggestions let me know.  Sorry Dreamweaver, but I just had to move forward.  

Happy 4th of July

Just got back from a week in New York in time to celebrate the 4^th West Texas style.  That includes a local rodeo, the Cowboy Reunion in Stamford, Texas, (http://tcrrodeo.com/) and a local amateur fireworks display in Noodle, Texas.  The rodeo was fun – a trick rider, who was good, and amateur cowboys who tried hard.  The Cowboy Reunion website has some great photographs.  As to the fireworks, they were pretty spectacular for an amateur event. They do this every year and usually set fire to something. Always exciting.  This year they had the Merkel Fire Department truck ready and they managed not to shoot anything sideways so no fires.  That’s good because it is so dry here that a fire could easily get out of control.  Now in the county they had over 30 grass fires on the 4^th from people setting fireworks.  It is wonder that we have survived as a species.

If you celebrate the 4^th of July, I hope you had a good one.  For me it’s back to archiving and scrapbooks.  More next week......