I am not a CA -- and I haven't actually worked as an archivist for 16
years, although my current Historian position touches on archival
issues still, from time to time. So, on the question asked about
becoming a CA, I defer to those who have taken the exam (I'm enjoying
reading your postings, in fact.) And to those who hire archivists.
Certification, its pros and cons, isn't an area I'm well equipped to
speak on. My training experiences go back too far, to the 1970s.
But, for anyone who is interested in debating another and somewhat
related issue, I'd like to broaden the question about the CA exam to
the larger question of how to capture varied perspectives while
discussing archival issues in other forums. I think it is very
challenging to provide "contextual sophistication" on some archival
issues. In fact, I noticed this at SAA, which I attended last week.
Let me say up front that I enjoyed most of the panel sessions I
attended. (And it was a lot of fun for me to talk about my career at
NARA at the Women Archivists Roundtable, they were very kind to invite
me and I loved meeting them!) And all of my official and unofficial
contacts with present NARA officials were very pleasant, indeed. (It
was nice to see many old friends and to make some new ones.) I learned
a lot. But I found the format of many of the sessions somewhat
limiting. In some cases, I would like to have seen more give-and-take
between listeners and panel members than was possible in the panel
format. We learned from the panel but in some cases, those on the
panel could have learned from some people in audience. It would have
helped add context to some of the sessions. I wanted to hear more, and
not just from the people sitting on the panel.
Here are some lengthy observations, intended both for those who sat on
panels and/or in the audience, and for those who are putting together
proposals for future sessions. Most of these comments are geared
towards how to get more give and take and more audience participation.
Maybe the current panel format is best, I don't know. I've been too
far away from SAA for too long, maybe all of this has come up before.
I'm just looking for ways to refine the setup of some of the sessions.
So, with a deep breath, and apologies for the long musings, here goes.
ASKING QUESTIONS THROUGH THE CHAIR
I asked fewer questions at the panel sessions than I had intended, for
a couple of reasons. The lack of a microphone which questioners could
use meant we relied on the chair of each session to repeat our
questions "for the record." (Most of the sessions were being recorded,
of course.) I haven't been to SAA in some 10 years, I dropped out for
a long time, then re-joined last year. And renewed my membership
belatedly, late in July right before SAA, in fact. So, I'm very hazy
on format. I remember at one session I attended in 1993, questioners
rose from their seats and walked up to a stationary mike in the aisle.
That way, we were able to ask our questions directly back then. I
didn't see this setup anywhere this year. We went through the chair.
Did anyone else find the reliance on a chair to repeat questions to be
somewhat of a challenge?
Some times I worked with that challenge, other times I didn't even
bother.
The "chair repeats the question" format seems to work best with simple,
one- or two-sentence questions, or ones without a lot of carefully
calibrated nuance. I found that it really doesn't work very well when
someone wants to comment at length or add another, perhaps complicated,
perspective to the question at hand. (I know the panel members would
have heard the questions, but the questions would only appear on the
recordings in the manner in which they were repeated by the chair.)
Maybe I shouldn't have let that stop me. But it did. As you all know,
asking a one sentence, one-layer question definitely is not me!
I did ask one question at the session on security classified records
(http://www.archivists.org/conference/dc2006/dc2006prog-Session.asp?event
=1757 ). I cited two GAO reports about improper removal of documents
by Executive Branch officials and asked whether more shouldn't be done
at the front end to strengthen the framework for handling security
classified records, to avoid having to deal with problems at the back
end. (GAO noted that reviews of departing officials' papers, if done at
all, may be done by subordinates who may feel unable to challenge the
senior officials. In 1991, GAO discussed what NARA does in these cases
and recommended a stronger oversight role. Had I had a microphone, I
would have expanded on that. I would have added that it can be
difficult to confront Cabinet level or SES officials, but doing so
within the government at the point at which they may try to walk away
with documents is a better solution than forcing lower level employees
to scramble to discover and to try to fix the situation later. There's
just too much opportunity for scapegoating and finger pointing,
although fortunately that did not seem to occur with the Jackson
papers. Everyone seems to have held up their ends well at the
University of Washington.)
But that was one of the few times I asked a question during a panel.
COMPOSITION OF PANELS
The Secrecy Vs. Access session was good but would have been even more
interesting, had a government official been present on the panel.
Instead, all the speakers were from the private sector and were pretty
much like-minded. (See
http://www.archivists.org/conference/dc2006/dc2006prog-Session.asp?event=
1732 . That being the case, there was no one on the panel to respond
when one of the panel members stated that advocates for public access
rely on archivists to speak up and reach out to them. If I understood
correctly, he basically urged archivists to do more in this area. Had
I been on the panel, I would have pointed out that reaching out from
within can be very diffifficult to do. Some employers can make it very
difficult for people to work their way through ethical issues. Loyalty
and message discipline naturally are prized by many executive branch
political appointees. And by private sector employers, for that
matter. Had I been on the panel, I would have asked how easy anyone
ever finds it to break message discipline and to reach out to external
parties from within his or her organization. Would Blanton do that,
for example, if something went awry with his collection at GWU or with
his colleagues at his Archives? Before asking people within government
to do that, shouldn't advocates urge government agencies to strengthen
internal mechanisms for resolving issues? From the audience, without a
microphone, I couldn't speak to that. So, I just let it go -- and
those points remained unaddressed.
Similarly, it would have been interesting to have an access advocate
present on the panel which dealt with how NARA handled the Roberts and
Alito records
(http://www.archivists.org/conference/dc2006/dc2006prog-Session.asp?event
=1725). Someone to represent what the research public expects from
NARA. And to offer questions or commentary on what the panelists
discussed. Instead, all four panel members (Jim Hastings, Steve
Tilley, Nancy Smith, and Michael Duggan) were NARA employees.
Neither Nancy Smith nor Michael Duggan -- both employees of NARA's
Office of Presidential Libraries -- mentioned the manner in which White
House representatives worked with records at the Reagan Library -- and
the subsequent disappearance of a file. (See the links earlier this
year at
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0605B&L=ARCHIVES&P=R12763
&I=-3 ). I was curious as to whether the Presidential Libraries'
reps would mention the missing file and noted with interest that they
didn't bring this up, although it had been discussed both in the press
and on this List. As an aside, I wonder if Sharon Fawcett would have
mentioned it, had she been the speaker who represented the Office of
Presidential Libraries. (Ms. Fawcett is the Assistant Archivist for
Presidential Libraries.) We'll never know.
I should add that I was fascinated by the way Ms. Smith referred during
her presentation several times to the "Presidential world" as opposed
to the "Federal world" at NARA. I worked briefly with Nancy Smith in
1989 -- we didn't have a great deal of contact then, as she was an
assistant to John Fawcett and worked downtown in the central office,
whereas I was at the Nixon Project, then at the NARA annex in
Alexandria, VA. But I don't remember anyone at NARA using the terms
"Presidential world" and "Federal world" to distinguish between units
(or cultures?) within the agency. (Of course, the President is the
executive in charge of administering Federal laws as a whole.) I
recognized then (and still do) that different statutes control access
to different materials held by NARA. But, in my mind at least, when I
worked for the National Archives, I always just saw myself as a NARA
employee. I simply felt a sense of common mission with my archival
colleagues in other NARA units, centered on the objective and
professional handling of all the records the agency holds in trust for
the American people, nothing more, nothing less. Had a higher level
official been on the panel, such as Dr. Weinstein, I might have asked
about that.
As an aside, of the speakers I heard at SAA, I would single out two. I
especially would commend Harry Cooper, the CIA representative. And in
the Roberts-Alito panel, it was Jim Hastings, NARA's Director of Access
Programs, who really shone. Hastings and Cooper both leavened their
presentations with self deprecating humor, occasional candid glimpses
of how they dealt with people inside and outside their organiztions,
and a light touch which enhanced rather than distracted from discussion
of serious issues. Both sounded at ease with what they had done and
were describing to us. And neither sounded defensive, or as if he was
giving a paper which read like a press release. You wouldn't
necessarily expect that from a CIA representative, but Mr. Cooper held
my attention and made me laugh out loud and nod several times.
Of course, I should acknowledge that I once worked for Jim Hastings at
NARA, and found him during the 1980s to be one of NARA's best managers.
His subordinates liked the fact that he never took himself too
seriously. And researchers seemed to like him also. I'm sure the
people who work for and with him today would agree with my assessment,
those types of skills and aptitudes don't change over the decades!
CHALLENGES OF USING THIRD PARTY CHAIRS
I recognize that those who teach archives and information mangement try
to use the case study approach and other means to examine "real life"
issues. SAA would seem to be a place where we all can share our
experiences and learn from what others have experienced. But, the
extent to which panel members interacted with the audience seemed quite
limited, except where there was an actual "roundtable" set-up.
Some of the questions I intended to ask at panel sessions would have
been complex and might have relied on my first including a couple of
sentences of context or background, before asking my question. As you
all know, I've been working in Washington for a long time. I know
something of how NARA was affected by the Clinton-era National
Peformance Review and by the flattening of its supervisory structure;
by external mandates; by political issues, etc. But I refrained from
asking questions in some cases because, after watching how chairs
summarized questions in various sessions, I concluded that the chair,
no matter how skilled, might leave out some things in repeating my
questions for the record. The format just didn't seem right for
asking long questions and for having much give and take..
This was especially the case at the "Managing Change in Archives"
session, where the chair was a third party contractor (from Lockheed
Martin, I think). I had the sense she was a change management expert
who brought a generic background to the panel. I concluded, rightly or
wrongly, that it would be hard to squeeze my perceptions of NARA into a
question she could distill for the panel. (The three speakers all had
archival experience. There was one NARA official on the panel,
Fynnette Eaton of NARA. Fynnette did very well -- she really knows
her stuff! I learned a lot from hearing her presentation).
Yet -- I would have asked a number of questions at that session, if I
could have used a mike to address the speakers directly. I'm thinking
of issues such as how do you reconcile an agency-driven initiative,
such as ERA, that requires collaboration, with externally imposed
initiatives, such as "pay for performance?" No initiative occurs in a
vacuum, there is a lot else going on, of course. The Department of
Homeland Security and DOD presently are working their way through how
to implement pay for performance and broad banding initiatives. This
seems to be the wave of the future in terms of managing employees'
performance. If these approaches eventually are applied throughout the
rest of the executive branch, including at NARA, they will link each
employee's yearly pay raises to his or her individual performance. Has
NARA thought through how to reconcile this approach with the
colloborative demands of ERA? (Of course, if it moves to pay for
performance, NARA wouldn't use a forced ranking approach such as the
one that Jack Welch used at GE. But, especially with a limited budget,
where it couldn't rate everyone "outstanding," how would it apply
performance based pay in an environment that will depend increasingly
on collaboration in performing work?)
Also, some change is planned, some change is unexpected. Just think
of what has happened at federal agencies since 9/11, for example. Or
what happens in private sector organizations during downsizing. I was
curious to hear from all the panel members as to whether there was a
tipping point at which employees might find it hard to absorb
simultaneous internally and externally driven changes. (Consider the
formation of the Department of Homeland Security, which brought
together a number of previously discrete entitites. At the time of
9/11, some of these agencies already were going through the
introduction of new technology initiatives. And challenges relating to
an impending wave of retirements, with the need for succession planning
and knowledge transfer. And the problems that can occur "when
generations collide." Now they face pay for performance and broad
banding. Does the need to adjust to several types of change at the
same time undermine any of the initiatives? Is there a point where
employees psychologically say, "no more, let me stop and get my breath,
will ya? I need to feel rooted in something, anything. Don't take it
all away from me." When that happens, how do you handle that? Do you
just wait for the older employees to retire? And rely on younger
employees who never knew "the old ways?" With so much change swirling
around them, what is the hest way to successfully send retirees out the
door, valued for what they did and feeling justifiably proud of what
they accomplished during decades of good public service, rather than
feeling unwanted? I actually have some ideas on that, but this message
is getting way too long and that would be off topic.)
I generally would have liked to have heard more about the prism through
which employees view efforts to sell them initiatives. Suzanne Long, a
professor who spoke at the "Managing Change in Archives" panel,
mentioned that 75% of technology initiatives fail. But she never
closed the loop. She didn't address the corrosive effect that can have
on employees. The overselling of initiatives is a problem everywhere,
but especially in Washington, where government officials are unlikely
to tell appropriators and oversight officials what went wrong. They
even may believe that it is dangerous politically to even admit that an
initiative was flawed, either in planning or in implementation. So,
they they may feel tempted to emphasize what is working well and to
rely on spin control to handle what happ[ened in the past.
What does this do to agency credibility, internally? To what extent
can agency officials candidly examine the failure of past initiatives
or change mangement efforts? What happens if they keep using the same
selling and marketing tactics ("This will be the greatest thing since
sliced bread!!!") time and again, without taking into account the
potential for employee tune-out? At what point does a credibility
problem occur, if, as Ms. Long asserts, so many initiatives fall flat?
She said 75 to 80% fail. Keep in mind, I'm asking this generally, in
terms of management science, not about NARA in particular. I haven't
worked at NARA since 1990 and haven't heard much about it since 2001,
when my sis died.
People are different, of course. I know as far as I'm concerned, I'd
rather listen to a boss who says, "You know, we promised you the moon
last time, and it didn't work. We've tried to learn from that. In
fact, we're not perfect, we know that, you certainly know that, but we
are comitted to continuous improvement. We get that we can't do this
by imposing our ideas from the top. We need you to help us do better.
Help us out, work with us in setting this up right this time." I tend
to think that the techniques that work in family counseling, such as
validating differing perspectives, also work in the workplace.
When I saw that Ms. Long was scheduled to talk about "human factors," I
had hoped for discussion of these sorts of issues. That didn't occur.
I briefly considered trying to broaden the discussion from the floor.
But, rightly or wrongly I didn't feel I could feed any of my questions
through the Lockheed Martin contractor who was acting as chair. So, I
didn't offer any comments at all or ask any questions at the "Managing
Change" panel session. I just didn't see any way to broaden the focus
of the panel or to provide more context for the issues under
discussion. I might have been able to do that in a different setting
(in fact, I did speak up at the excellent seminar on managing archives
that Michael Kurtz did on Saturday morning), but not in the one that
was used for the panel.
Did anyone else feel, not at the Managing Change panel, but at any of
the panel sessions, that a chair might not capture all the nuances of
your questions? Or that it was difficult to offer extended comments
from the floor? After all, you bring differing perspectives and
expertise to SAA, reflecting the differing institutions for which you
work. I for one would like to have heard more of that from you on the
floor than I was able to hear during most of the panel sessions.
All of which is a very long way of saying, context and nuance DO
matter, but even at an event such as SAA, it can be challenging to work
through all their complexities. I'm not surprised to hear that it can
be a problem on the CA exam.
Maarja Krusten
Former NARA Nixon tapes archivist
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