Archivists who manage institutional programs do all that you do Bruce, they
deal with budgets, process administration,human resources, work flow
analysis, facilities management,marketing,  project management, operations
management, and many other business functions.  Many of them learn this in
their archival training programs if they come out of a history based
program. I did.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Fairfax, MA, CA
Director, Island County Records and Information Services

-----Original Message-----
From: White, Bruce [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 12:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interdisciplinary communication


[log in to unmask] writes:

>Archivist need to become Records Managers and Records Managers need to
>become Archivists. We should all have the same base of knowledge.
>Should we specialize beyond that? Yes. Should we have historians at
>conferences? Yes. I personally would like to see a core of professional
>development seminars that are presented at the conferences that are
>more in line with required if you are going to claim to be a Records
>Manager.
And Rick Barry chimed in:
>Very well said, Chris.

Well, if you are in government, this rule may apply.  But for those of us
working in private industry, which is where the growth in opportunities for
records managers is occurring, I disagree.  In the business environment, I
believe RMs need to have core competencies in business administration. And
last time I checked, none of these subjects are currently taught in U.S.
history departments (haven't checked foreign), where many in the archivist
community come from.

Most of what I do on a daily basis revolves around concepts I learned in
business school - marketing, budgeting, HR, information systems, business
process analysis, operations management, project management, etc.  In fact,
I don't even see archives on the radar screen in my company in the
foreseeable future and probably won't for years.

ARMA and others much wiser than me are still wrestling around with what core
competencies records managers need - it seems like a moving target.  In
addition, there are only a handful of institutions (most overseas) that
offer a program in records management.  So I think it would be difficult to
put together a "core of professional seminars" as you suggest.

Maybe we need to have specializations or even separate professional
organizations for government and private sector records managers, as the
accounting and purchasing professions have in place.  This idea was
suggested to me years ago when I worked for a state government agency.

Definitely a fascinating topic of discussion...

Bruce L. White, CRM, PMP
Manager, Records Management
Sempra Global
619-696-4671
619-696-2534 (Fax)
619-952-7145 (Cell)

"While you're at it, you might as well
      add discovery to death and taxes."
                               Nicholas Ralph Baum

"Sempra Global is not the same company as the utility SDG&E or SoCal Gas,
and Sempra Global is not regulated by the California Public Utilities
Commission."

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