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  They deal with collections of papers, that is, primary documentation, which is unpublished.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.