Educating Archivists in Library and Information Science Schools

Archives and Records Management Education and Training: what can Africa learn from Europe and North America?

“…While Canada has had almost two decades within which it has developed multiple programs, the US is yet to develop an entirely autonomous self-contained program. However, the US has, in its most current guidelines, developed policy guidelines to achieve similar outcomes to those in Canada (Cox et al 2001;Society of American Archivists 2002).…”

‘I’m not a very good visionary’: challenge and change in twenty-first century North American archival education

“…At the turn of the millennium, Cox et al ( 2001a ) celebrated the growing number of full-time tenure-track faculty in LIS programs; concordantly, programs offered ever more archives courses (Cox et al 2001b ). All the same, many programs depended still upon a sole educator, so their existence remained imperiled (Bastian and Yakel 2006 ; Cox et al 2001a ; Yakel 2004 ). In a far cry from fifteen years prior, Cox ( 2015 ) worried about the field’s possible attrition.…”

“…In a reificatory but useful passage, Cox et al ( 2001a ) identified three generations of archival educators: The first generation of archival educators possessed PhDs in history; the second generation slowly drifted toward LIS doctoral programs and wrote dissertations on archival topics with little or no archival faculty or curricular support. The third generation of archival doctoral candidates has the opportunity of studying with archival faculty, taking advantage of courses focused on archival issues, and participating in archival research projects (p. 237).…”

Training for the archival profession in Namibia

“…Harrison (2004) cautioned that, ''The syllabus taught at archive, library and documentation schools can 'harmonise' provided the 'sovereignty' of each profession is observed.' ' Cox et al (2001) argued that the threecourse sequence [which is no longer the case] marginalized archives, but reported that the situation has improved, as there has been an increase in the number of archival courses. Unfortunately, the changes in the University of Namibia, Department of Information and Communication Studies have not increased the number of archival courses.…”

“…There are numerous writings on training of archivists including those by Cox et al (2001), Ngulube (2001) and Kangulu (2000). Questions have been raised on where the archival and records management programmes should be placed, in schools of library and information science (LIS) or in history departments.…”