Hi, John, it's Maarja.   I'm sending this to you and to the List.

 

I am puzzled by why this issue of archival education has become so "hot," it seems to me that there is plenty of room for disagreement.  Maybe that just reflects my perspective as a member of the older generation of archivists. We didn't have nearly the attention paid to certification and credentialing issues in 1976 when I joined NARA as the List now reflects. 

 

Maybe it shows my old fashioned view, but I have to say I've never paid much attention to what credentials anyone lists behind his or her name in posting to the List.  (I'm not talking about considering people for jobs, just my own reading of List postings.)  I tend to focus on the content of postings, not how someone signs his or her name.  (Apologies to Kim Scott by the way, who is a man.  I used "she" in a posting about his good posting earlier today, oops.)   Or whether they are a relatively young archivist or are a vet with decades of experience.  You'd be surprised whom I can learn from, plenty of people, it turns out, LOL.

 

I came in to NARA with History degrees and did all my archival studies through in-house training at the Archives.  Maybe some archivists these days are superior to me and my generation, I don't know.  I haven't worked as an archivist since 1990, remember, I've been employed as a Federal historian for the last 16 years.  But I find it hard to believe that anyone can pigeonhole people as a class (we versus they).  I daresay my generation was as variable in the quality of our archival skills as the younger generation..  Since I think there's plenty of room for disagreement on the archival education issue, I don't understand at all why this thread should elicit threats or abusive language.  Or private exchanges that can be construed as harrassment by one party or another.

 

That said, I'm uneasy about the practice of posting to the List private, off-list messages attributed to identifiable individuals.  This actually came up at least once before in the past.  See

or

http://shrinkster.com/g06 . .  There was a lot of List traffic on the issue of confidentiality in the first week of May 2005

 

While I hope in the future that you don't post forwards of private messages received from identifiable individuals, I also would say, don't be discouraged about posting to the List, keep speaking up, I think we on the List benefit from diverse viewpoints on this and other issues.  That includes both you and Dana, as far as I'm concerned.  I'm sorry Dan S. got so tired of deleting messages, but hey, we all have those days when we get tired of List mail.  Fortunately, all mine is set to go into a Groupwise folder marked Archives List..  Some days I am so busy that I delete all my List messages and instead wait until the weekend to read through some of them on the Archives List web interface at my leisure, instead.

 

Maarja (who can't think of anyone high up in the archival profession who would pitch in for me and who consequently speaks only for herself.  Unless I quote my late sister, LOL.  And since we were twins, that's almost like quoting myself, hahahaha..)