I too was taken aback, but the segment went on to describe the archivist's
discoveries about US presidents. This included property records for
Lincoln that showed he wasn't as poor as generally thought. So, in that
part of her job, she was acting like a history detective. Even NPR
sometimes uses jazzy language and current cultural references in order to
hook listeners :-)

|((|  Ellen Chapman, MLS, MA, CA
|))|  Archives & Manuscripts Department
|((|  University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
|))|  (808) 944-7656






On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, [windows-1252] Alison Langmead wrote:

> Judging from the librarian/archivist job title discussion, I know that
> this may be be a contested topic, but...for anyone who listened to the
> Morning Edition report on Mary Beth Corrigan, archivist at PNC/Riggs Bank
> (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5503791), I wonder
> who else was somewhat insulted by the fact that, when Mary Beth introduced
> herself as "the archivist for PNC/Riggs Bank," the reporter's voice-over
> comes back with, "But she is selling herself short; Mary Beth Corrigan is
> a 'history detective.'"
>
> A "history detective?" Perhaps I'm being oversensitive here, but isn't
> that a little condescending? She's an archivist for heaven's sake, which
> is so much _more_ than that epithet suggests.
>
> Sigh. Should I just be glad that archivists are being praised in the press?
>
> Alison
>
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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
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