I appreciate your points here, Maarja, and I only have one comment.
Library students like the one to whom you are responding should
realize that it's not just whether one is willing to take a government
job that affects NARA, it's one qualification in particular that many
or most library-science students won't be able to meet.
I don't know for sure whether this still applies, but I thought I had
seen the same requirement recently. I quit applying for NARA
positions once I realized that they do (or did) enforce the
30-semester-hour requirement in history courses. Now, when I got my
Master's in Library Science, I only had to take 42 semester hours of
courses to get the degree. (I took 45.) So 30 hours is a lot. I
wasn't a history major in college. (30 units is the equivalent of
around an entire academic year of courses, depending on the course
load a student carries, and it's an expensive proposition in time and
money.) I didn't become interested in history until after I got my
BA, but my informal studies don't count. So despite my MLIS and my
10+ years of experience in archives, special collections, and
libraries, I'm not qualified to work for NARA, even as a processing or
media archivist not doing reference.
I've always taken this as NARA coming down solidly on the historian
side of the division in archival science between students of library
science and historians. Whether that's a prejudice or a justifiable
qualification I'm not qualified to judge. Nevertheless, I think it is
something that library students should look into as they plan their
courses. And I would be interested to know if this qualification
still applies and how strictly it is enforced.
Arel Lucas
the usual disclaimers
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ
--------------------------------
>Many federal agencies and think thanks have grappled with the brain
>drain and the decline in the number of people willing to take
>government jobs. Think Paul Volcker and the commissions he has headed,
>for example. Also check out what the Partnership for Public Service
>says about the brain drain at
>http://www.ourpublicservice.org/research/research_list_all.htm . "The
>coming wave of baby boomer retirements, combined with other turnover,
>threatens to dramatically diminish the federal government's
>effectiveness in meeting urgent public needs." NARA is not immune to
>this.
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