America's Next Top Information Professional

October is Archives Month. There’s no better month than October to work on your family tree, peruse the manuscripts of your favorite writer, or, you know, celebrate democracy by examining public records.

Appropriately enough, the new Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, was confirmed today. As you can see in the comments on this New York Times blog post, Ferriero’s background with NYPL has touched off another round of discussion about the professional identity of the archivist. That is, the archivist as distinct from the librarian (or, for that matter, the historian). While librarianship is regulated through ALA accreditation of MLS programs, there’s no equivalent for archival education. Programs like the MAS program at UBC are very rare in North America: more often, when there’s explicit archival education at all, it is embedded in a history or LIS degree. Although there are professional certifications (like through the Academy of Certified Archivists), plenty of archivists get hired without those certifications or even any explicit archival training. While the diversity of backgrounds can be really fertile the profession, it also seems to confuse the public. (Even the NYT initially reported that Ferriero would be the “top librarian” of the country.)

As a student of both archival and library studies, I often get asked “which way” I’m leaning. My Joint cohort often jokes that we’re like the kids in an unhappy marriage, everyone wants us to pick a side. I strongly believe that we can learn both how to deal with a record, how to deal with publications, and more generally, with information or data. In fact, understanding the similarities and differences can be very valuable.

Nonetheless, October is a month for loving the ‘chives. You can watch the CSPAN footage of Ferriero’s confirmation here. Bon archives, everyone!