Quick Query — Finding Locations where Nothing is Assigned in Archivists’ Toolki

I just wrote a quick query to give records in the locations table in Archivists’ Toolkit that don’t have instances assigned to them. This sounds like a pretty common thing that folks want to see — here it is:

SELECT
*
FROM
LocationsTable loc
WHERE
loc.locationId BETWEEN 0 AND 10000
AND loc.locationId NOT IN (SELECT
locationId
FROM
ArchDescriptionInstances containers
WHERE
containers.locationId BETWEEN 0 AND 10000)
AND loc.locationId NOT IN (SELECT
locationId
FROM
AccessionsLocations accession
WHERE
accession.locationId BETWEEN 0 AND 10000);

Happy New Year!

As we finish our first week back at work in 2015, we thought it might be nice to reflect on what we accomplished in 2014 and what our resolutions are for this year.

Looking Back

Carrie

As I type this I am sitting in a living room piled high with boxes and strewn with bubble wrap and packing tape.  I finished my six and a half year run at Columbia on Friday and will be starting a new position at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library at the beginning of next month.

This past year was full of professional changes.  I got a new director, moved offices, our library annexed another unit which landed under my supervision, and our University Librarian retired at the end of the year.  Amidst all of this, though, my team and I managed to hit some pretty major milestones in the middle of the chaos and change-related-anxiety.  We completed a comprehensive collection survey that resulted in DACS compliant collection level records for all of our holdings, we published our 1000th EAD finding aid, and kept up with the 3000 plus feet of accessions that came through our doors.

Cassie

Last year I spent a lot of time learning how to work with data more effectively (in part thanks to this blog!) I used OpenRefine and regular expressions to clean up accessions data. Did lots of ArchivesSpace planning, mapping, and draft policy work. Supervised an awesome field study. Participated in our Aeon implementation. Began rolling out changes to how we create metadata for archival collections and workflows for re-purposing the data. I also focused more than I ever have before on advocating for myself and the functions I oversee. This included a host of activities, including charting strategic directions, but mainly comprised lots of small conversations with colleagues and administrators about the importance of our work and the necessity to make programmatic changes. I also did a ton of UMD committee work. Oh, and got married! That was pretty happy and exciting.

Maureen

2014 was my sixth year working as a professional archivist, and continued my streak (which has finally ended, I swear) of being a serial short-timer. Through June of last year, I worked with a devoted team of archives warriors at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. There, we were committed to digging ourselves out of the hole of un-described resources, poor collection control, and an inconsistent research experience. Hence, my need for this blog and coterie of smart problem solvers. I also gave a talk at the Radcliffe Workshop on Technology and Archival Processing in April, which was an archives nerd’s dream — a chance to daydream, argue, and pontificate with archivists way smarter than I am.

In June I came to Yale — a vibrant, smart, driven environment where I work with people who have seen and done it all. And I got to do a lot of fun work where I learned more about technology, data, and archival description to solve problems. And I wrote a loooot of blog posts about how to get data in and out of systems.

Meghan

It kind of feels like I did nothing this past year, other than have a baby and then learn how to live like a person who has a baby. 2014 was exhausting and wonderful. I still feel like I have a lot of tricks to learn about parenting; for example, how to get things done when there is a tiny person crawling around my floor looking for things to eat.

Revisiting my Outlook calendar reminds me that even with maternity leave, I had some exciting professional opportunities. I proposed, chaired, and spoke at a panel on acquisition, arrangement, and access for sexually explicit materials at the RBMS Conference in Las Vegas, and also presented a poster on HistoryPin at the SAA Conference in Washington, D.C. Duke’s Technical Services department continues to grow, so I served on a number of search committees, and chaired two of them. I continue to collaborate with colleagues to develop policies and guidelines for a wide range of issues, including archival housing, restrictions, description, and ingest. And we are *this close* to implementing ArchivesSpace, which is exciting.

Looking Forward

Carrie

I have so much to look forward to this year!  I’m looking forward to learning a new city, to my first foray into the somewhat dubious joys of homeownership, and to being within easy walking distance of  Jeni’s ice cream shop.  And that’s all before I even think about my professional life.  My new position oversees not only archival processing, but also cataloging and description of MARBL’s print collections so I will be spending a lot of time learning about about rare book cataloging and thinking hard about how to streamline resource description across all formats.

Changing jobs is energizing and disruptive in the best possible way so my goal for the year is to settle in well and to learn as much much as possible– from my new colleagues, from my old friends, and from experts and interested parties across the profession.

Cassie

I am super excited to be starting at the Orbis Cascade Alliance as a Program Manager in February. I’ll be heading up the new Collaborative Workforce Program covering the areas of shared human resources, workflow, policy, documentation, and training. The Alliance just completed migrating all 37 member institutions to a shared ILS. This is big stuff and a fantastic foundation to analyze areas for collaborative work.

While I can’t speak to specific goals yet, I know I will be spending a lot of time listening and learning. Implementing and refining a model for shared collaborative work is a big challenge, but has huge potential on so many fronts. I’m looking forward to learning from so many experts in areas of librarianship outside of my experiences/background. I’m also thrilled to be heading back to the PNW and hoping to bring a little balance back to life with time in the mountains and at the beach.

Maureen

I have a short list of professional resolutions this year. Projects, tasks and a constant stream of email has a way of overshadowing what’s really important — I’ll count on my fellow bloggers to remind me of these priorities!

• All ArchivesSpace, all the time. Check out the ArchivesSpace @ Yale blog for more information about this process.
• I want to create opportunities for myself for meaningful direct interaction with researchers so that their points of view can help inform the decisions we make in the repository. This may mean that I take more time at the reference desk, do more teaching in classes, or find ways to reach out and understand how I can be of better service.
• I want to develop an understanding of what the potential is for archival data in a linked data environment. I want to develop a vision of how we can best deploy this potential for our researchers.
• I have colleagues here at Yale who are true experts at collection development — I want to learn more about practices, tips, tricks, pitfalls, and lessons learned.

Meghan

I have a few concrete professional goals for the coming year:

• I want to embrace ArchivesSpace and learn to use it like an expert.
• I will finish my SPLC guide — the print cataloging is finished, so as soon as I get a chance I will get back to this project.
• I have requested a regular desk shift so that I can stay more connected to the researchers using the collections we work so hard to describe.
• I am working more closely with our curators and collectors on acquisitions and accessioning, including more travel.
• My library is finishing a years-long renovation process, so this summer I will be involved with move-related projects (and celebrations). Hopefully there will be lots of cake for me in 2015.

 

Rehousing is Not Processing

This post has been stewing around since last July, but builds nicely on our Extensible Processing book reviews and Maureen’s post on containers.

In supervising processing projects I’ve come across some wacky decisions made over the years. While I’ve started projects from the beginning, a large portion of projects I’ve supervised have been already in progress, started under someone else (or multiple others).

One reoccurring issue I’ve noticed is how often people say processing when they mean something else or they mean a very small part of processing. Rehousing is a common culprit, but other activities fall into this too. Here’s two examples of “processing projects” that mostly aren’t at all:

1. Collection was processed in the 1970s. A paper finding exists with notes, series descriptions, and a folder (or item) level container list. Materials are in acidic boxes and acidic folders, but labeled. Actions taken during the project: Rehoused all materials into acid-free folders and acid-free boxes, including creating additional, smaller folders. Changed the series arrangement and physically re-arranged materials. Excel container list was created by retyping (retyping!) the content of the paper finding aid  and adding in the newly created folders for conversion to EAD.

So many times I came across similar ongoing processing projects with a justification that the materials needed better housing. Often, other tasks got tacked on such as redoing the series outline (even if there were no additional materials to add and no evidence that the current series outline had issues.)

2. Preliminary inventory in Word exists at the folder level using creator created titles for a large volume of organizational records. Finding aid existed with summary notes and linked out to a PDF of the preliminary inventory. Actions taken during project:

• Collection was rehoused into acid-free folders, staples removed, some preservation photocopying done, oversize materials removed and rehoused separately (separation sheets completed)
• Materials were reviewed on an item level and marked as restricted. Some redaction might have happened. Sometimes the restricted materials were removed to a new folder with the same title and marked as restricted (using separation sheets in the original folder). Sometimes the restricted materials were left in place and the whole folder was labeled restricted.
• Excel container list was created by retyping (retyping!) the exact information on the folder (aka the exact information already in the preliminary Word list) as materials were re-foldered. Largely, the creator titles were kept with some additions. Dates for folders were added or edited. Excel list will be converted to EAD.
• Folders were physically grouped by letter of alphabet based on the folder title. Ex: All the folders starting with “A” are physically together in “A” boxes, but not in actual alphabetical order yet. (Currently, those folders are being arranged in alphabetical order in acid-free boxes. Look for an update on how long/how expensive just this one phase takes!)

Both of these examples were large projects that occurred over many years (often with pauses due to turn over and lack of resources). Looking back, what value did we add? The collections are in more stable housing than before and in one case we know more about restricted material. But, otherwise, what have we gained for our users that we didn’t already have?

Essentially, these were called processing projects but are really rehousing and restriction review projects. Not projects to create access to materials or bring intellectual or physical order to the materials. After all, they both already had a documented intellectual and physical order that should have been described in our finding aid notes (at whatever level.)

What we should do instead:

• Put resources towards creating access to materials over rehousing materials.
• Develop a baseline housing standard that you can live with. It might be that all materials are in acid-free boxes. Or maybe it’s just that your boxes aren’t falling apart.
• Get over the idea that all collections need to be physically arranged and re-housed during processing (or re-processing). Rehousing a collection into acid-free folders and/or acid-free boxes is not the main goal processing. The task does not create access to collections or describe the materials. It’s housekeeping. It’s not necessary to include in a processing project.
• Specifically state what rehousing tasks will occur in the processing plan and at what level. Justify spending processing resources on this. Don’t include it just because you’re used to including this task during processing.
• Prioritize materials, at a repository level, that risk severe damage or information loss due to current housing based on importance. Develop a specific budget/set of resources for this type of work. Tap into the resources of your preservation/conservation department when available.

When facing resistance to not including rehousing in a processing project numbers are your friend. “Do we want to rehouse this collection that’s already pretty stable or do we want to take those resources and create access to more collections?” is often too abstract for people. Attaching actual costs to rehousing work (labor AND supplies) can help to push people resistant or nervous about dropping rehousing to focus on activities that create access. Treating rehousing work as separate from processing can also help to decouple the idea that your intellectual and physical order must always match.

Book Review: Extensible Processing. But What About…

Chapter 9 addresses questions and concerns raised about extensible processing. Dan provides responses based on archival theory, practices, projects, and goals to a wide range of topics, details how extensible processing can actually help solve the issues raised, and calls for more critical analysis (and actual change) of other archival functions. There are gem quotes/talking points in every section (I resisted listing them all!) that show why objections aren’t reasons to not pursue extensible processing. He reiterates the strengths of extensible processing and its flexible nature to accommodate many situations. Dan offers data points to gather to make decisions about additional description work for selected materials, which may also help to address some of the issues raised.

As someone who has worked at two institutions building extensible processing programs, I have heard every single one of the arguments presented in this chapter against changing how we provide access to materials (sometimes all of them in the same meeting!) To me, lots of the arguments against extensible processing techniques really come down to two fundamental experiences or beliefs:

We care about creating access to select collections, want to do it in the same ways as before, and think we can’t really do anything about the backlog without a major influx of resources (which we won’t ever have.)

OR

We care about creating access to the most amount of collections possible, realize our methods have created a backlog, and are willing to try different approaches to eliminate the backlog.

Why do so many people still fall into the first category? We have it in our power to change our practices to create basic access to all our holdings. Why wouldn’t you get behind that idea?

Because you want control? Because you want your boxes to look pretty? Because you want your folders in a very specific order? Because you’re nervous about changing your daily tasks? Because you’re worried that a step/detail for one collection/series/folder/item won’t get done as it has before? Because you’re scared to make harder decisions and think more broadly?

Dan continually shows in this chapter (and the whole book) that extensible processing offers a way out. Even if you don’t happen to like the details, it gets you much closer to your goal of providing access to all your collections. A good extensible processing program will push for systemic decisions and changes in other areas. It also means being able to talk about our work differently. Consider that a common thread among the objections (regardless of the topic/specifics) is intimately tied to the archivists’ identify and professional status. Dan’s last two paragraphs are so well said:

Rather than damaging the profession, extensible processing practices have the potential to enhance the profession’s standing with researchers, donors, and resource allocators. Gains in intellectual control of collection materials, the rates at which newly donated material is made available, and the removal of barriers to access can all be used to demonstrate the value of extensible processing and of archivists themselves. Archivists should strive to stress these aspects of their work, rather than the traditional housekeeping of physical processing, boxing, and labeling.

If archivists are not refoldering, wedding, arranging, or describing the same way every time, what is left to do? Making difficult decisions and looking at the big picture, including when to stop and move on to the next collection. Looking at complex collections and recognizing the patterns and relationships between and within them. Making the high-level arrangement and appraisal decisions. Responding to users by basing processing priorities and decisions about levels of processing on information about what collections are used the most. Solving problems and being creative in finding ways to provide access to collections. All of these are incredibly valuable, and highly valued, skills for archivists who will lead the way in delivering archival material to users. [1]

I think this chapter is a must read for everyone at institutions with backlogs. It will provide those advocating for extensible processing with additional talking points and evidence. For those who may be resisting extensible processing techniques, chances are that the chapter has covered your concern and could lead to productive conversations and shared understandings with your colleagues.

---

[1] Santamaria, Daniel A. Extensible Processing for Archives and Special Collections: Reducing Processing Backlogs. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2015, 139-140.

 

Extensible Processing: Who is Involved and Who Cares?

So earlier in this series Maureen looked at the chapters dealing with why repositories should implement an extensible processing program and Meghan looked at the chapters that talk about the hows of implementation. I am focusing here on who is involved in implementing and maintaining an extensible processing program. My review focuses on Chapters 6-8, sections that in one way or another assess the ways that an extensible processing program plays well with others, from the professional community and its systems (through the rigorous application of standards based description), with repository staff and administration (through effective management of staff and advocating to management and administrators), and with users (through seeing online digitized content as an end goal of the processing process).

One really important aspect of this book is that it makes a very serious case that while archival collections may all be unique, the ways that we approach them are not. The fundamentals of our work stay the same as does the end goal of quickly and effectively serving our user communities.  Extensible processing techniques are carried out in similar ways at the collection level and the repository level, and they are supported and guided by widely accepted professional standards. While some detractors of baseline processing and other extensible processing techniques claim that these approaches are incompatible with standardized archival practice, Dan moves point by point through the most relevant sections of DACS explaining why the careful adherence to standardized description, far from being incompatible with minimal processing, in fact undergirds the entire enterprise of an extensible processing program. Archival descriptive standards are specifically designed to be flexible and to accommodate a range of levels of description and local practices. If they work right, and we do our jobs, they provide a way for the entire professional community to participate in and guide the principles behind individual processing programs at individual repositories.

So this sort of processing program is firmly based in broad professional standards, but on a more localized level there are any number of people that are involved in arrangement and description work.  Chapter 8 focuses in on the repository level, and addresses how to lead, administer, and manage and extensible processing program, with a major focus on project planning and management.  This section highlights one of the real strengths of the book– its concrete, realistic, and implementable advice. Santamaria walks the reader through various decision making processes, discusses criteria for priority setting, lays out specific elements of a processing plan, discusses resource allocation and personnel decisions, and how and why to adhere to firm timelines. This chapter is an excellent road map for a manager interested in talking the principles throughout the book and making them a reality. The specific suggestions are supplemented by a series of appendices that provide examples of processing plans and other forms of documentation to assist archivists in codifying their practice and moving towards and extensible processing model.  This is a chapter I will be coming back to and reviewing when I need to manage new projects, create buy-in from staff, and advocate for extensible processing procedures to my management and administration.

The final people affected by our arrangement and description decisions are, of course, our users. Chapter 7, Digitization and Facilitating Access to Content, investigates user expectations around digital delivery of archival content (and our remarkable failure to meet them). Dan not only calls for digitization to be an integrated aspect of archival processing work (rather than a separate program) but frames this argument, usefully and importantly as an ethical consideration of equitable access to collection resources. He states that

Just as with processing, if our goal is to provide ‘open and equitable access’ to collections material, archivists need to use all the tools at our disposal to allow researchers of all backgrounds access, not just those who can afford to travel to our repositories and visit during the work week. [1]

He then goes on to suggest models for broad digitization and concrete suggestions for how repositories can work digitization into workflows, work with vendors, and manage privacy and copyright issues, but, for me, the heart of the chapter is the same message that is the heart of the book and of this processing model as a while, the insistence on equitable access.

These three chapters clearly articulate that the adherence to standards, the focus on end-user access, and the high levels of planning and management acumen that go into an extensible processing program serve to reiterate to the archival community that minimal processing is not lazy, sloppy processing. Dan reminds us, in what I think is one of the most important lines in the book, that

In an efficient extensible processing program the intellectual work of arranging material into broad groupings takes the place of neatly ordering items in folders and folders in series [2]

As archivists we add value to collections by applying our knowledge of how people and organizations work and how to think critically about the records that they create in that process. As a community we need to use our real professional skills to assess the records that our repositories hold. Quickly and competently assessing the nature of records is a difficult and skilled high level work; refoldering is not. We need to focus our professional skills and our repositories’ resources where it counts and where it is most likely to provide value to our various communities of stakeholders.

---

[1] Santamaria, Daniel A. Extensible Processing for Archives and Special Collections: Reducing Processing Backlogs. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2015, 85

[2] ibid, 72

Book Review: Extensible Processing. Why Extensible Processing is Essential

This week, our core group of editors will review Extensible Processing for Archives and Special Collections: Reducing Processing Backlogs by Daniel A. Santamaria.

---

Many successful archival repositories have, for a very long time, operated in ways to make sure that their practices scale to their collections sizes, staffing resources, and user needs. But it seems that it’s only been in the last ten years, since the publication of Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner’s “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing” and the associated cascade of conference presentations, case studies, and affiliated articles, that processing procedures as a whole have moved toward something that we can talk about, think critically about, and ultimately re-examine the purpose of.

This book provides the first comprehensive framework that I’ve seen about how to run a repository based on extensible processing principles — principles that are firmly rooted in deeply-held archival values and the logical extension of Greene and Meissner’s argument that every procedure in a library needs to be held to the scrutiny of materials’ availability for use. And, since this blog is largely about repository-wide projects (and shifting our thinking toward taking care of everything in our care instead of thinking about processing project after processing project), it seems like an excellent fit for our interests and audience.

Chapter one starts with a sobering analysis of the backlog problem. In short, backlogs are growing, staffing is flat, collecting continues, the records we collect as evidence of our creators’ lives and work are more voluminous than ever, and few of us are doing anything differently to help address the fact that patrons can’t see our collections. He pulls what I found to be a shocking statistic — according to an OCLC research survey of special collections libraries in late 2010, internet-accessible finding aids only exist for 44% of collections [1], despite the fact that it seemed like one couldn’t throw a rock at a conference between 2005-2010 without hitting someone having a discussion about Greene and Meissner’s article.

So, there’s obviously a problem. Despite MPLP’s very good advice that we need to be willing to look at our work differently if we want to overcome the problem of scale, it’s simply not happening in too many repositories. And here, I think, is where this book makes an important intervention in the archival literature.  Santamaria provides reasoned, step-by-step advice toward building a program where patrons are better served, donors’ expectations are met, and staff aren’t constantly trying to climb out from a hole of tasks yet to be performed with no relief in sight.

Given the choice, it’s a lot more professionally satisfying to work in a place that doesn’t accept the inevitability of backlogs. I worked for Dan at Princeton from the beginning of 2011 through 2013. If you’re wondering what it’s like to work at a place with a true philosophy of access first, and where one examines, each time, what processing means for that collection (and in the context of the other work that needs to be done) and why you’re doing it that way — well, it’s a lot of fun. I had come in at a particularly exciting time — because of the smart decisions that Dan and other archivists at Mudd had made in years previous, the backlog was dead. We were able to work on projects (like the Princeton Finding Aids site), that relied on creative engagement with our description, our materials, and our users. I believe that this kind of project was only possible because Dan had already built a culture of intellectual engagement with our work, where each member of the team understood our mission and the purposes of archival description.

For anyone overwhelmed by her repository, things can be different. But relief can only come if you’re willing to take a hard look at why you do what you do. More than that, you might have to spend more time managing and planning (and less time treading water, hoping that change will come externally). Chapter two provides six principles for an extensible processing program.

1. Create a baseline level of access to all collections material
2. Create standardized, structured description
3. Manage archival materials in the aggregate
4. “Do no harm”: limit physical handling and processing
5. Iterate: conduct further processing in a systematic but flexible way
6. Manage processing holistically

I believe that what separates professional archivists from interested enthusiasts is a commitment to managing our time in ways that our best for researchers and collections. This book makes a compelling case for a deliberate approach, which requires that archivists make prudent decisions and hard choices every day.

Throughout this book… emphasis is placed on decision-making, prioritization, and adherence to archival principles and standards — concepts that apply to archivists at many levels and in every kind of organization. [2]

I’m convinced that we all have the capability to approach our work this way — but that 44% number doesn’t lie. We need to treat the problem of backlogs like the crisis it is. I look forward to Meghan’s review tomorrow, which will cover chapters 3-5 and discuss concrete steps any archivist can take to effectively manage processing and kill the backlog.

---

[1]  Santamaria 2, quoting Dooley, Jackie and Katherine Luce. “Taking Our Pulse: The OCLC Research Survey of Special Collections and Archives.” OCLC Research, 2010. It’s interesting that according to the survey, 74% of collections would have online finding aids if analog copies were converted and made available online.

[2] Santamaria, Daniel A. Extensible Processing for Archives and Special Collections: Reducing Processing Backlogs. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2015, X

When will restricted materials become available?

One morning recently, our records services archivist sent me an email. He was wondering if there was a way I could report to him on which materials in our university archives have restrictions that have passed. After all, this data is buried in access restriction notes all over finding aids — it would be very difficult to find this information by doing a search on our finding aids portal or in Archivists’ Toolkit.

This is exactly the kind of project that I love to do — it’s the intersection of archival functions, improved user experience, and metadata power tools.

In ArchivesSpace, restrictions have controlled date fields. This kind of report would be very easy in that kind of environment! Unfortunately, AT and EAD only has a place for this information as free text in notes.

Time for an xquery!

xquery version "3.0";
 
declare namespace ead="urn:isbn:1-931666-22-9";
declare namespace xlink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";
declare namespace functx = "http://www.functx.com";

<restrictions>
{
 for $ead in ead:ead
 let $doc := base-uri($ead)
 return
 <document uri="{$doc}">
 {
 for $accessrestrict in $ead//ead:dsc//ead:accessrestrict/ead:p[matches(.,'(19|20)[0-9]{2}')]
 let $series := $accessrestrict/ancestor::ead:c[@level = 'series' or @level = 'accession' or @level = 'accn']//ead:unitid
 let $dateseg := fn:substring-after($accessrestrict,'until')
 for $x in $series
 return
 
 <lookhere location="{$x}">
 {$accessrestrict}
 <date>{$dateseg}</date>
 </lookhere>
 }
 </document>
}
</restrictions>

And now for the walk-through.

Working together, we determined that any end dates will be below the <dsc>. So this report asks for any access restriction note below the dsc that includes a date in the twentieth or twenty-first century.

The report tells me what series that access restriction note is a part of and which file it’s a part of. I also pull out any text after the word “until”, because I see that common practice is to say “These materials will be restricted until XXXX.”

From there, I was able to put this data into an excel spreadsheet, do a bit of clean-up there, and give my colleague a sorted list of when particular series in collections are slated to be open.

Wrap Up – Women in Archives

We are so thankful for everyone who has read and shared our posts. Thanks to all who commented publicly on the blog, social media platforms, and personal messages. Thanks to those discussing these topics off line with your colleagues, friends, and family.

What have we learned over the past two weeks writing about women in archives?

• We weren’t the only ones asking trusted colleagues “Has this happened to you?”, “Do I really come across as mean?”, “Did you notice there are no female finalists for this high level or technical position?”
• There are still enormous differences in how men and women are treated in the workplace at large and in the archives and library professions. We only skimmed the surface of recent studies in a variety of fields highlighting a few of these differences.
• The personal is political. Our deeply personal experiences intimately connect to a larger social and political structure. Everything we’ve discussed has an impact on how we do our jobs. (We didn’t even get to discussing women and technology, being viewed as experts, etc…)
• Social networks and sharing are important. As Maureen said in our kick off post, one reason for this blog in the first place was to share our work to help each other. We need to help each other in other ways too. Whether that’s providing advice on how to handle an inappropriate situation in the workplace or encouraging someone to apply to that next step up job we know they would rock (even if they worry they aren’t ready/qualified yet).
• These issues are hard to write about. (Hence a wrap up post five days later than planned.) We probably should have kept track of the hours it took.
• There is so much more to talk about. We brainstormed many more potential posts. We bet you have ideas too.

So, what’s next? What do you think? What ways will you be advocating for women in the profession or your institution? How can we continue the conversation?

Real Talk. Negotiating Salary in Archives

I’ve written and spoken about this issue before. The long and short of it is that women don’t tend to negotiate their salaries, and not doing so goes a long way toward accounting for the wage gap between men and women. So, now that I’m in my fifth professional job, I’m going to give you some real talk about my approach to negotiating.

You do not work for the joy of the collections. You do not work for the joy of research. You work for money. And even if you don’t, I do, and I don’t want you sending bad messages to employers that we’re compensated by the joy of our experiences.

Do everything you can to make sure you’re not negotiating with your future boss. If possible, it’s best to negotiate with someone from HR whom you’ll never see again in your life. If your future boss calls to make you the offer, say “I’m very happy to consider this offer. Could you please arrange for me to negotiate details with a human resources representative?”

On the flip side, if you’re a manager, you should also insist within your organization that negotiation must happen between the candidate and someone from HR (or the business office, if you’re a teeny-tiny organization and you don’t have an HR department). It is in your best interest that your new employee has the opportunity to negotiate an employment situation that works for everyone. Do you really want them to get a bad deal because they’re worried about how they’ll come off to you?

For my first job, my future boss emailed me and said that he would like to interview me, but I should know that the salary was set and that he would require me to stay for three years. I said that we could talk about that after he made an offer. Guess what? I was able to get a little more money and I didn’t agree to stay for three years. Don’t assume that a bogus first offer is final.

Educate yourself about market salaries for your job type and in your area. This is obviously really tricky when job ads don’t post salary information. But, salary information for public employees is freely available. You can even call the reference desk at a university or public library to ask them to help you look up salary information.

I’m a huge advocate for talking about salaries with friends (or anyone who asks — I’ve worked for five university libraries and I’m happy to answer questions about what I earned to anyone who contacts me). It’s hard to know if you’re making less money than you should be, or less money than male colleagues.

When I negotiated for my current job, I called the person who filled my seat before (it was a slightly different job, but the skill set is comparable and he came in with about the same experience and education). At one point in my negotiation, I point-blank said “I know that this person was making $X when he started four years ago and $Z when he left. $Y would be an equitable salary.” This did a lot to re-balance power in that negotiation. If you can say “I know that someone with the same job title at X peer institution makes $Y,” you can help demonstrate that they need to be competitive with the rest of the market.

They’re going to say a lot of stuff about equity within the institution, their budget, blah blah. And I don’t buy it. Let me tell you why. Librarians/archivists are the second-lowest paid profession that requires a master’s degree (we’re ahead of social workers… woo). We’re ALL already underpaid. If you’re an accomplished candidate, play hardball. And if you’re just starting out, start getting them used to the idea that archivists are worth money and that we’re going to ask for it. Professionals in other specialized fields wouldn’t put up with this, and neither should we. It may be absolutely true that this institution is broke and suffering. But this is not your responsibility. You have no obligation to let them balance their budget on your back.

For me, this has hit really close to home. I don’t work at a poor organization — in fact, I work at an extremely wealthy organization. My husband has pretty much the same job I do, but he’s in a museum at my university and I’m at an archives. He had been in his position for a year before I started, so I obviously knew his salary and the resources available to him. He also doesn’t have a master’s degree, and I have a very good one. I’ve been working as a professional for slightly longer than he has. Anyway, I was pretty gobsmacked when the starting salary I was offered was $13K less than what he earns.

I was ready for a serious negotiation. I’m not here to help protect this university’s decisions about which professionals in which departments deserve better salaries. The HR rep’s concerns about parity within the department rolled right off of me — they’re very welcome to give everyone else a raise to help achieve parity. I knew that I was a very desirable candidate, and I knew how much money they needed to offer me for me to take the job.

Negotiations can be full of bullshit. Stay cool with your list of what you want. HR reps like to talk about the intangible benefits of working at a wondrous institution like theirs — listen politely and let them say their piece, but don’t fall for it. I’ve worked at three Ivy League universities and two very wealthy private research universities, and really, the benefits (especially the “intangibles”) are all pretty much the same. The “merit increase” process is all pretty much the same, so don’t assume they’ll come to realize that you’re a spectacular employee and will give you a big raise. They won’t. You need to be in the ballpark of where you want to be at the time of negotiation, or it’s never gonna happen.

Obviously, you need to be polite and you need to listen. It’s best to start the conversation by asking “are you able to negotiate salary?” As we know, “tone” is important for women. You may end up with a crappy salary, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up if the negotiation doesn’t go the way you want it to. You may even have to walk away from a truly crappy offer. The very most important thing is for you to develop a sense of responsibility and solidarity so that when you’re in the position to affect a new employee’s salary/hire package, you won’t participate in the bogus hivemind of scarcity and sacrifice that seems so prevalent in archival institutions.

Bossy, abrasive, and emotional

Here are some real life situations my fellow bloggers and other women we know in the profession discussed recently at SAA:

• I bought up an ethical objection to a proposed new policy in a public meeting and was told “[name] you’re just being too emotional about this.”
• When I bring up an issue with a current practice at a staff meeting and offer alternatives I’m told “[name] you’re being too critical.” When a male colleague brings up a similar issue and offers alternatives no one responds to him in this manner. He’s thanked for bringing up the issue/being willing to work on the issue.
• Two female candidates interviewed for a position; one was better qualified but was very blunt. When the interviews concluded, she was critiqued by the (male) chair of the search committee for being “too aggressive.” The rest of the staff thought she was a breath of fresh air.
• Being told by a co-worker “You need to ‘play nice’ if you want to change things.” (aka wait until people like you more before doing anything.)
• In a small group meeting, I was conversing with my male colleague and told him to let me know when his part of the project was ready. I was promptly scolded in front of everyone for not saying “please” by an older female colleague.

While the examples above are verbal (and a small snapshot of experiences), Kieran Snyder released a study last week on how women and men are described in written performance reviews. The results aren’t pretty.

Results showing that women receive more critical and negative feedback then men.

• 58.9% of reviews of men’s work included critical feedback compared to 87.9% of reviews of women’s work.
• Negative personality criticism shows up two times out of the 83 (2.4%) critical reviews for men. For women, it’s in 71 of 94 (95.9%) critical reviews. Essentially, “Men are given constructive suggestions. Women are given constructive suggestions — and told to pipe down.”
• Bossy, abrasive, strident, and aggressive describe women’s behavior when they lead. Emotional and irrational when women object. Each word showed up multiple times in women’s reviews, but only the word aggressive showed up three times in men’s reviews. In two of those instances, it was to encourage men to be more aggressive.

Snyder’s study found that the gender of the manager didn’t seem to make a difference in the reviews (besides that reviews by female managers were about 50% longer.) Yesterday Carrie posted about being an advocate for those you supervise. Let’s add to that list with the charge to think carefully about the words you use to describe your employees. Maybe give yourself more time in your schedule to write performance reviews. Write drafts and let them sit for awhile so you can come back with a fresh eye and ask yourself:

• Am I describing the person’s work or their perceived personality?
• If I am critiquing personality traits, how does that affect their performance?
• Am I providing negative comments when describing work well done?
• Am I providing constructive feedback so they know what areas need improvement?
• Is my feedback (positive or negative) providing concrete examples?
• Would I describe this person differently if they were a different gender? Could someone guess this person’s gender just by reading the review?

Beyond performance reviews, we all need to carefully think about the language we use to describe or react to (written or verbal) all of our employees and colleagues. The words we use matter and can make a huge difference in how someone feels about their work and value, not to mention the future of their professional lives.