In response to Mike:
At 07:17 AM 02/12/2009, J. Michael Pemberton wrote:
>I've never seen one scintilla of evidence that readers without
>doctoral degrees care about scholarly writing (meaning research);
As an example, 50% of the InterPARES research project
co-investigators are professional records managers without doctoral
degrees...they conduct original research, write about it and are
eager to read about research findings related to their field.
>and, by the way, how many RM PhDs are there (name one)?
PhDs do not have a disciplinary identifier after the title. If you
are asking how many have graduated with a dissertation squarely in
the records management field, I can name Fiorella Foscarini, Victoria
Lemieux, and myself to start, but there are many many others.
>A peer-reviewed journal does not sui generis create academic
>programs; it is created from programs as above that precede
>it. Name one other discipline without significant academic presence.
Some of the most important archival refereed journals have preceded
the existence of academic programs in archival science, including The
American Archivist. The Digital Forensics profession has a refereed
journal without having an academic presence other than in very few
isolated courses, but my guess is that it is going to have one sooner
than RM, precisely because of that refereed journal which publishes
the research in which its members take part.
>First, then, there must be enough existing Ph.D. professors of
>records management.
There are many of those, who write important stuff on journals that
records managers do not read because these journals are not a natural
place for records managers to look into. All the issues Blake has
mentioned, "the creation and implementation of retention schedules,
policies, senior management support and discovery v. cloud computing,
and social network sites", these are the issues we academic conduct
research about in collaboration with professionals in the field, who
contribute using their organizations as test-beds. These are the
issues we write about, explaining pros and contras as evidenced by
research, and developing solutions. We work with city
administrators, with the police, with courts and lawyers, with
universities, and write about successes and failures, and doing so we
help all the practitioners.
>It is not ARMA that must create and own the peer-review journal. It
>might be a large supporter, but the program and journal will more
>likely be housed in a large prestigious records management
>department (name one). They also run the journal processes. And
>most peer review journals carry little or no advertising--who's
>going to pay for this?
In areas of professional endeavors, professional associations are the
primary driving force in educating their membership and the
profession at large, and in fostering the development and
communication of new knowledge through a scholarly journal. Indeed,
for decades, scholarly journals have been the primary means for
professional associations to attract membership and raise their
status and that of the profession.
Academics in professional disciplines do not write for other
academics but for the field and professional associations are
responsible for bringing that knowledge to the field. ARMA is a
notable exception, not the norm. If it had a scholarly journal,
hundreds of students in North America (because there are hundreds of
students in RM, Mike, believe me) and thousands worldwide would
subscribe to it (one could subscribe to a journal without being a
member of the association or get the journal free as part of the
membership), initially simply because its articles would be in the
classes reading lists, and later because professionals do need to
read about new ideas and research in their field, as Jesse mentioned,
in order to do a better job.
Subscriptions would pay for the journal, but, as in the case of the
ACA with Archivaria, ARMA could start with a grant from a research
agency. There are ways when there is the will. ARMA is much richer
than the ACA, SAA, SoA, etc. It is a question of priorities, isn't
it? Why don't we ask the young people, those who are now in class
preparing for a career in RM, those who are a large part of the
potential readership? ARMA should consider that a scholarly journal
would be a powerful membership recruitment tool for all those
enrolled in graduate classes in RM.
Luciana
Dr. Luciana Duranti
Chair and Professor, Archival Studies
Director, The InterPARES Project www.interpares.org
Director, Digital Records Forensics Project www.digitalrecordsforensics.org
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies www.slais.ubc.ca
The University of British Columbia
The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
Suite 470, 1961 East Mall
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1 CANADA
Tel: 604.822.2587
Fax: 604.822.6006
www.lucianaduranti.ca
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