Pluralizing the Archival Paradigm: A Needs Assessment for Archival Education in Pacific Rim Communit

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Pluralizing the Archival Paradigm A Needs
Assessment for Archival Education in Pacific Rim
Communities Reflections on the Research
Protocol and Data Collection

• Yang Lu March 21, 2007

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Archivists -- The Power to Represent

• Traditional image of archivists passive,
  impartial and objective
• In fact, at the center of archives power (the
  power to create social memory and national
  identity)
• Especially in todays electronic era
  exponential production of electronic records and
  continuous change of the means and media to
  produce and preserve documents

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Archival Education vs. the Marginal Communities

• Archives -- the memory institution of the
  powerful
• Representation of the marginal communities --
  archives about the community rather than of the
  community
• Then
• How do we ensure that archivists undertake the
  representation responsibilities without
  prioritizing or marginalizing the voices and
  traditions of certain groups or communities?
• Part of the answers lies in education pluralism
  in archival education

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The Pluralizing the Archival Paradigm Through
Education Project

• A seed project aiming for an initial exploration
  of the archival education landscape in the
  Pacific Rim region and providing baseline data to
  build up future research
• A collaborative project funded by the University
  of California Office of the Presidents Pacific
  Rim Research Program and involving researchers at
  UCLA, Monash University in Melbourne, and Renmin
  University in Beijing
• Purposes
• 1) to identify the current availability and
  scope of the archival education across the
  Pacific Rim
• 2) to identify a methodology for follow-up
  research and development activities

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Research Design Three Components

• 1st survey of educators in Archival Science and
  related areas -- the current status of archival
  education in the Pacific Rim
• 2nd survey of professionals from archival and
  other cultural and government repositories
• 3rd survey community leaders and relevant
  scholars

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Research Design Subject Identification and
Recruitment

• Identification
• 1) publicly available information (websites,
  directories of various academic departments,
  museums, and governmental sections, and
  publications)
• 2) China name list from Bin Zhang
• Means of recruitment and survey
• 1) Mail or email
• 2) Face to face

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Data Analysis and Results -- Survey of Archival
Educators
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Number of Countries and Educators Surveyed and
Response Rate
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I. Origination of the Archival Programs Major
Political Shifts and Social Events

• Earliest countries independent of colonial rule
  promoting national sovereignty and cultural
  identify
• Economic revival and/or judicial stipulations

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II. Evolution of the archival programs

• Disciplinary location History ? elsewhere in the
  1980s and 1990s
• A movement away from certification and vocational
  programs to full-fledged degree programs
• The rise of doctoral education

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III. Areas of Focus and Targeted Sectors of the
Archival Programs

• Areas of Focus
• All mainstream areas of archival theory and
  practice
• Most frequently mentioned electronic or digital
  records management
• Least mentioned juridical context, legal issues
  affecting archival access and use, archival
  collecting, and management of non-textual
  archival materials

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III. Areas of Focus and Targeted Sectors of the
Archival Programs
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IV. Curriculum Design

• Frequently mentioned government needs and
  initiatives, international standards, and social
  needs (in particular, the state of the job market
  for archivists)
• Less frequently mentioned local history and
  culture and the historical background of the
  archival education program

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V. Consideration of Local and Community Needs and
Issues
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VI. Program Outreach and Academic Collaboration

• Outreach
• 1) websites and brochures
• 2) word-of-mouth and distance education
• Academic collaboration
• 1) faculty exchange
• 2) cooperative teaching and exchanges of courses
  through distance education

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VI. Program Outreach and Academic Collaboration

• Incentives for collaboration
• 1) obtain specific expertise
• 2) faculty and programmatic improvement,
• 3) lack of local experts and faculty
• 4) build cooperative relationships
• 5) exposure to differences
• Impediments for collaboration
• 1) salary and tuition differences
• 2) local and military policies and
  regulations
• 3) lack of time for learning
• 4) lack of communication channels with other
  countries
• 5) need for a shared language of instruction
• 6) difficulties with articulation of credits
• 7) cultural differences.

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VII. Distance Learning

• 50 participate in some form of distance
  education mostly short courses (VHS video,
  online, CD/DVD, correspondence, TV)
• 15 distance education under development
• 45 no participation in distance education
• (difficulties in administering the logistical
  and financial aspects full-time status recent
  internal changes in program structure or faculty
  the inappropriateness for research training)

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Summary

• The establishment of many Pacific Rim archival
  programs, ranging from 1950s to 1980s, was
  closely associated with major political shifts
  and social events.
• The traditional cultural and historical
  imperatives in archival education were giving
  away to an economy-driven paradigm with an
  overall emphasis on information, technology and
  business. Correspondingly, targeted employment
  sectors are predominantly occupied by government,
  and increasingly, industries and enterprises.
• Current archival programs focus on teaching
  international standards and best practices,
  covering all paradigmatic aspects of contemporary
  archival theory and practice, especially
  electronic/digital records management. However,
  areas that are critical for understanding
  alternative perspectives and modalities of
  recordkeeping are rarely covered.

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Summary

• Although local and community needs were
  considered, they were not truly identified or
  catered to, and played little role in curriculum
  design in these archival programs.
• International collaboration on the development
  and pluralization of archival education is highly
  desireable in order for faculty to acquire
  additional expertise and have their own expertise
  exposed to others, but in practice is hard to
  accomplish.
• Distance education was moderately utilized in the
  Pacific Rim but mostly was short training
  courses.