A question for archivists and librarians

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know there are librarians here on the SDMB, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to give me some advice.

I am currently pursuing an MLS with a concentration in Archive Management. Since I am investing a rather large amount of time and money into this venture, I am looking for tips to make myself as attractive as possible to prospective employers.

I currently work part-time at a college library, am completing a required internship at one archive, and am pursuing a possible extra-curricular archive internship for next semester.

Will archiving internships/volunteering help much on a resume?

What about my GPA? My professors claim that it isn’t that big of a deal, but I don’t know how far I should trust that.

Finally, what does the job market look like right now? Am I killing my chances of finding a job by focusing on the narrow field of archives? Would I be better served pursuing a more general course of study?

I love archives, but when all’s said and done, I really want to be able to find a job.

2

Will archiving internships/volunteering help much on a resume?

They will help much more than not having any library/archive related experience. Depending on what background you have, getting a supervisor at one of these places to be a reference can be helpful as well. Get whatever experience you can while you’re still in school.
What about my GPA?

No one looked at my GPA that I’m aware of. What they cared about was that I had graduated and that I could prove it with an official transcript. (That doesn’t mean that my current job didn’t look at the GPA when they got the transcript, but by that time I’d accepted the position).

Finally, what does the job market look like right now? Am I killing my chances of finding a job by focusing on the narrow field of archives? Would I be better served pursuing a more general course of study?

Honestly, I don’t know what the job market for archivists looks like at the moment - I’m reference, and I love that. I didn’t consider archives as a job option for me personally. I’ve heard that, because it’s a fairly narrow specialty, that the job problems plaguing librarianship in general are emphasized (those problems being a limited number of entry level openings, low salaries and the like).

3

Very good. These are all important.

Oh yeah! Not only will the experience look good on your resume, you will get equally valuable letters of reference from your employers if you prove yourself. Experience and a good rep will take your further than anything else.

Welllll, use your best judgement here. Is your GPA the end-all-be-all that will make or break your career? No, but it’s not unimportant either. Get your grades as high as you can while still maintaining your extracurricular workload in volunteer/internship/part-time work. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here: The things that will get your foot in the door are experience, letters of reference, and a reputation for working yourself to death and then working some more. Computer and other technical skills are also a bonus. That said, you won’t be doing yourself any favors by getting a 2.3 GPA.

There’s no easy answer here, Orual; it depends on so much. Where are you located right now? Are you willing to relocate across the country to find the job you seek? Is there a special kind of library you want to work in? Do you want a management job? These and any number of other factors will determine your outlook.

Absolutely, Orual, and from what I can see, it sounds like you’re off to a decent start. And since this is IMHO, I’ll share with you what I have seen work in the field.

Don’t worry too much about finding that special archive job right away. If you find a good job with bennies, take it and continue to work toward an archiving job. Keep auditing classes even after you get your masters. Consider a second masters degree in a separate field (A masters in history, for example, would probably be a good fit for archiving.). Network with other libraries, join the ALA, ACRL, and other professional organizations. If you don’t know computers already, either take workshops or teach yourself. You can’t have too many tech skills.

Above all, work. Work, work, work, work, workity work. Keep moving forward, keep striving, keep learning, keep your chin up. Something will come up, if not now than eventually. The path to your goals in libraries is rarely straight, from what I’ve seen, but the good news is that you are guaranteed to learn quite a bit.

Once again, it seems to me that you’re off to a good start. Keep up the good work, and let us know how it turns out.

4

This is particularly important because since archives interact a lot with each other (advice about collections, interoffice loans, annual conferences and national organizations, etc.), the likelihood that prospective employers are familiar with someone on the staff or the institution in general is much higher than you might expect.

I do have to say once I got an MA, nobody cared about my grades. It’s all about the experience. The greater diversity of experience you have (duties, skills, environments, types of collections), the better off you are. Archives, especially ones that are underfunded and understaffed, often are looking for people with a breadth of skills. The more you can say you’ve done, the more different types of environments you’ve worked in, the better off you are.

As for the job market, it’s hard for me to tell since I’m in a niche archiving field (film/moving image media). However, I know of several instances where people created an archivist position for themselves at a company/studio/institution. Often, places (especially smaller ones) may not have a formal “archive”–they’ll have collections they’ve inherited (or accumulated internally over time), and people who are trying to manage that collection while also attending to their other duties. This may be particularly true in the private sector. It never hurts to solicit companies that have products that may interest you (from Coke & Ford to the NFL to McDonald’s) and inquire about their archiving policies, management, and protocols. You can describe this as an informational interview, but you may discover that you can frame an argument so that you are presenting them with a need they didn’t fully realize they had (especially if you can tie archive management to internal efficiency or collection exploitation in commercial arenas).

Museums are great, and libraries (whether in the public arena or tied to universities) are always enviable places to work. But there are a lot of corporate environments out there, too, so the more you think “outside the box” about where you might want to work (both in a field and geographically), the more employment options and opportunities you may find open to you.

5

Thanks for the responses!

Yeah, there’s the main reason for my fear. Libraries aren’t exactly a growth industry to begin with, and I might just specialize myself right out of a job.

I admire your ability to love reference. I’m currently working a reference desk, and can see myself getting very tired of it very quickly.

I’m in Boston, but I’m willing (even eager) to relocate. Ideally, I’d like to work at a historical society or museum, though I’m fairly sure those are not places with much in the way of job openings.

I’m not particularly interested in management. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.

That’s good to know. They do keep telling us the archives community is small. I just hope I’m doing a good enough job to get a good reference. It’s hard to tell, my internship supervisor seems nice but… gruff.

6

The library where I work is trying to establish an archive. We’re in the beginning of the grant process, possibly looking to hire a limited-term archivist in the next couple of years, contingent on getting a grant, of course. It could never be a permanent position, unless the archivist also did a lot of “regular” library work, too - we’re too small.

When do you graduate?

7

I’m shooting for the spring of '07. The program I’m in is designed to be part-time, and they seem to encourage longer stints for some reason. But I wanted to be done in two years, so that’s what I’m shooting for.