[SOA] Employment Roundtable Discussion - what can SOA do to help?

[Christine Engels]

Since the employment session on Friday I have been trying to come up with something SOA can do to help. We all know what we cannot control - the economy and employers' fears related to that - but what is under our control or at least what could we influence?

To my mind the big task is to make our collections a priority to employers. This is not easy at all. I work at an institution that used to have 4 full time archivists and now only has one, me. I have started my own campaign with my supervisor's help to quantify exactly what kind of help I need and how that would benefit them. Oftentimes management only "sees" the archives when they suddenly need something. I prepared a few different plans for hiring a project archivist which we can easily insert into grant proposals. None of these have panned out yet but I won't give up because that's how I came to be where I am now. I started here as a 1 year project archivist and each year they would find another grant to write me into until I was finally written into the budget on hard money (and sadly that was only done because of a re-alignment of jobs that moved my predecessor to another department). I have faith that we can do that again and I urge other archivists at institutions to always try for grants to hire people in the hopes that the positions can become permanent. Once you have some more help you should report often to your superiors about the progress they are making and how it also affects your own productivity. Remind them how what you do benefits them. Pass on notes from thankful researchers so they see your work. Toot your own horn. If you don't make yourself relevant you won't be in their eyes.

This isn't something that can be solved quickly but I want SOA members to know that Council heard you loud and clear on Friday that this is something you are passionate about. We are open to any ideas on how SOA can advocate for Ohio's archivists, so please speak up.

Christine

Christine Schmid Engels, C.A.
Archives Manager
Cincinnati Museum Center
1301 Western Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45203
513-287-7066
cengels at cincymuseum.org<mailto:cengels at cincymuseum.org>
http://library.cincymuseum.org/
http://www.cincymuseum.org/



From: ohioarchivists-bounces at lists.oplin.org<mailto:ohioarchivists-bounces at lists.oplin.org> [mailto:ohioarchivists-bounces at lists.oplin.org] On Behalf Of Lonna McKinley
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 2:50 PM
To: ohioarchivists at lists.oplin.org<mailto:ohioarchivists at lists.oplin.org>
Subject: [SOA] Employment Roundtable Discussion - what can SOA do to help?

We had the beginnings of a good discussion on employment for archivists.  Unfortunately we had to cut it short.

To get this started on the listserv -

Please respond with any ideas you have that SOA can do to help the situation of unemployment and underemployment of archivists.

Lonna McKinley


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