A Map through the Less Defined Situations:
Final Thoughts about the American Archivist

Richard J. Cox

The following essay was originally published in the
Society of American Archivists Newsletter, March 1996, pp. 8-9, 31.

By the time you read these words I am now writing, my time as Editor of the American Archivist will be over save for cleaning up a few odds and ends. It has been an interesting four years. It has also been a frustrating time. I hope that my honest assessment of editing the journal will prove useful for all who care enough about their chosen profession to take a few moments to read a brief commentary in this professional newsletter. As usual, I also hope that my comments will inspire a few more to put fingers to keyboard and to contribute to their professional literature.

Editing the American Archivist puts one into a somewhat closer contact with the archival profession in this country and in foreign nations than one usually has the opportunity to experience. You have the chance of reading contributions from a broad array of the profession, often on issues of current debate and contention. Despite what some of the critics of the professional literature suggest, these contributions come from archivists in both large and small programs and from individuals with a diversity of educational backgrounds. The Society of American Archivists journal also is read by our colleagues around the world, as I learned through personal contact and correspondence with many. In fact, the American Archivist may be more regularly perused and more highly regarded by archivists outside of the United States as a source of ideas about both practice and theory, and here you have a hint of one of the frustrations of being Editor.

Contemplating my tenure as Editor, however, leads me to wonder more about what I have learned about the archival profession. Our professional community seems, as a whole, not to be engaged in research about its own work -- few research studies were submitted for consideration for publication in the American Archivist. The profession does not seem inclined to contribute many thoughtful essays about its practical work or the implications of its practice in institutions or society - - more of these were submitted than those on research, but the overall quantity and quality were very limited given the usually high education levels of archivists. And the profession does not appear to be interested in the kind of careful debate characterized by essays probing the innermost depths of professional practice, thought, and ethos -- precious few such writings were ever submitted to me although cantankerous debates on the Archives and Archivists listserve and in other professional forums suggested that there were many opinions held about the profession, its literature, and the nature of its knowledge.

The purpose of my comments is not to generate sympathy for me or the new Editor of the American Archivist. The purpose of my comments is not to whine about what sometimes seems to be an impossible task, sustain a professional journal for a profession seemingly uninterested in its professional literature. Whether one believes it or not, individuals generally agree to take on a responsibility such as editing a journal because of a commitment of service to and interest in their profession. Power, prestige, and paeans did not seem to be perks for this job.

I am writing this in order to express a legitimate concern about the future of the archival profession. I do not think the American Archivist should be terminated because of the problems with submissions or the perceived level of readership because it is essential to the health of professional knowledge and practice (at least for those who use it). Without a forum for the exchange of thoughtful inquiries into professional practice and the more theoretical underpinnings of archival work, our practice is bound to suffer.

A profession exists because of some form of commitment to the common good of society. Surprisingly, many archivists will tell you (at least many have told me) that taking time to read, let alone write for, their professional literature will diminish their opportunity to contribute to that common good. They are too busy, with everything. They are too busy doing to have time for reflecting about what they do. If that is the prevailing attitude, then I think we are in serious trouble in the years ahead.

William Sullivan, who has written perhaps the strongest statement on professions recommitting to that common good in his Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America (1995), has noted that professions have three features -- "specialized training in a field of codified knowledge usually acquired by formal education and apprenticeship, public recognition of a certain autonomy on the part of the community of practitioners to regulate their own standards of practice, and a commitment to provide service to the public which goes beyond the economic welfare of the practitioners" (p.2). The American Archivist, from production to use, most closely relates to the knowledge aspect of these professional characteristics. The journal is not published to be put into barber shops or doctors' offices, and it is not generally a forum for gaining a better concept of the profession's potential public good. It is different from the electronic chatter of listserves and the exchange of views at professional conferences or around the office coffee pot.

My argument is simple, but hopefully not simplistic. It seems to me that archivists possess an extremely important responsibility in society -- the maintenance of records of continuing value to that society, its institutions, and its people. I doubt few would quibble over this statement, even if they hold different views about the particulars of the mission. But I believe this responsibility brings with it the need to maintain currency or sharpness in the archival professional knowledge in order to ensure that the archivist understands records and recordkeeping systems and their uses and values for a wide array of constituencies. Here I expect many arguments. What is the professional knowledge? What do you mean by records and recordkeeping systems? Who are our constituencies?

Obviously, in a brief essay such as this, there is little space to write about all the various aspects of the professional knowledge or the mission of the archivist. However, it should be clear -- whether it is through appraisal, the design of descriptive approaches, or the act of providing access to the records -- that the archivist has to know first and foremost about the records and recordkeeping systems. Where is the evidence that we do? I have found that the most useful essays about the history and evolution of recordkeeping systems are being written by historians such as Clanchy, Stock, and Harris who are studying the evolution of literacy despite the fact that many archivists are history-trained and inclined. I have found that the most useful studies about the value of records and other forms of evidence are being written by journalists, communications theorists, and historians such as Kammen, Buruma, Zelizer, and Schudsen studying public or collective memory. And I see the most powerful writings about the impact of information technology on society and its present and future being written by technologists, humanists, and other scholars such as Negroponte, Birkerts, Lanham, and Sanders despite the fact that archivists too are increasing managing electronic records. Where are the archivists?

It is difficult for me to imagine that we are somehow contributing to the public good if we seem uncertain about sustaining a professional knowledge or using our minds to build a knowledge that grapples with issues important to us and society. Why should society trust us if it wonders if there is any substance to being an archivist? There is also little question that we are in the midst of a shift in the nature of information and its dissemination as critical and sweeping as that that occurred in the century after the advent of a readily available printing technology. Why is it that this powerful and exciting time that we live in is not a stimulant to intellectual curiosity about the basic, even mundane things we do as archivists?

I could end this essay with another list of research projects needed, issues for which reflection and intelligence seems both necessary and logical, and a whole host of very practical applications -- carried out in the heart of our repositories and work places, but I have said all this before, we have plenty of research agendas (largely ignored), and there is no need to terminate this on a negative tone. It is better to return to the essence of professionalism.

William Sullivan has reminded us of the civic qualities of professionalism and of the religious origins of the concept, implying both a call and a commitment to the message or service of the profession. Sullivan has also argued that many professions have gotten tied up in battles for specialization and power for purposes far short of any common good in society or value to it. I would argue that a significant part of reconstructing the American archival profession in a meaningful fashion rests with our ability to speak with authority about records and recordkeeping systems with continuing value to society, its institutions, and the people and that an essential part of the source of this authority stems from a professional literature based on careful study, codified practice, intelligent inquiry, right question- asking, and the pursuit of intellectual curiosity about our basic activities. Sullivan has suggested that a "good practitioner is indeed a specialist who has learned the rules and basic techniques of a field" but that the "full dimensions of expertise are only revealed when a professional must respond to new, less defined situations" (pp. 174-175). Reflecting that type of expertise, gaining public credibility, can only emanate from archivists who are "scholars" in their own field and who can apply that knowledge to the rapidly changing nature of records and recordkeeping systems.

I did not ask to be relieved of my duties as Editor because I was overly frustrated by some of the challenges I have described in this essay. Nor did I cease being Editor because I grew tired of trying to contribute to the profession in this way. Rather, being the Editor of the American Archivist has assisted me to sort out some of my own professional priorities, and the priorities that have shifted to the front relate to the task of writing, speaking, and teaching about the importance of archival records to a greater public audience. Even now, I miss being Editor of the journal. But I wish Phil Eppard all the best on his great adventure, and I hope you will help to guide him along the way to a strong, lively, and creative American Archivist.