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International congress of professional associations – archivists in association: challenges and opportunities. Madrid. October 17

Over 18 associations and 130 delegates participated in this one off event organised by the International Council on Archives (ICA) Section for Professional Associations (SPA) and the Ministry of Culture, Spain.

This event covered the role of archival associations in society, outreach and archival associations and the future of the professional association. Much of the event took place as round tables and it was great to see a lot of active participation from the floor.

After a suitably high powered introduction by the Spanish minister of culture (who paid for the whole event) and Cruz Mundet, Director of the Spanish National Archives Didier Grange kicked off proceedings with his presentation highlighting the lack of research in the area of archival associations which he aims to rectify by writing a book on said theme! Didier spoke of the history and background of associations. The oldest association was set up in the Netherlands in 1891 with the USA close second followed by Estonia in 1939. He noted that many were established post World War Two. The biggest society is ARMA with 11,000 members. He estimated that there are approximately 80,000 members of professional archival associations in the world.

Didier described the context of SPA’s creation. At the time of its creation It was felt that there needed to be more room for dealing with non governmental affairs. SPA was created to fill this gap within ICA. Didier noted that ICA is heavily subsidised by Governments and that associations contribute 1% to ICA’s budget. He suggested that governments remain to be represented by ICA but that associations should be represented by a federation and institutions are then in turn represented by their association.

Mark Green the present president of SAA(a one year post) then took the floor and described SAA’s various effective public policy efforts. These were situations where SAA fought and lobbied against proposed legislation. This included the situation where certain records relating to inmates in Guantanamo Bay were to be destroyed, SAA lobbied strongly against this. Advocacy of this kind is carried out by volunteers and not by lobby groups. Alan Weinstein stood up to the US Vice president regarding the incorrect classification of archives resulting in a Washington newspaper referring to our noble profession as the new macho heroes of society’.

SAA provide tips for media interview for their members as well as doing a lot of outreach to the general public.

A round table followed focussing on associations and governance. Discussions ensued about who qualifies for membership of associations around the world. Discussion also concerned the governance of associations as well as the relationship with national archives in our respective countries. It gave each Society a chance to publicise upcoming events! We agreed that self promotion has been a problem. It was interesting to note that while in Spain there is no specific training in archives, in Colombia all archives must have professionally trained archivists carry out archival roles.

Peter Lor the president of IFLA gave a fascinating talk about the role of IFLA. IFLA has a permanent HQ in The Hague and its most important members are nation associations.

It has 11 full time staff and 45 sections! These sections work on various topics such as guidelines, standards and publications as well as training sessions and workshops. Recognising the changing environment within which it works a new focus is now on climate change, ICT, internal political relations encompassing issues such as conflict. Socio economic factors are also considered such as the emergence of a powerful ageing population, migration, as well as the impact of HIV/AIDS on society and their relationship with libraries and books.

In the afternoon we had an archives fair where each association had a table and displayed their wares and websites for people to browse. Let it be noted that we carried our own material to Madrid on behalf of the Society!

Day 2 began with a round table on outreach and associations. It was interesting to hear the various approaches taken by associations as round the world. Kim Eberhard noted that the Australian Society of Archivists Australia commented that ASA have an alliance with a humanities based lobby group. This group teaches archivists skills about lobbying politicians. She noted that it is good to use other professions. With regard to outreach towards records creators the German archivists noted that they conduct campaigns. In Canada a conference called ‘archives and you’ is being organised aimed at non archivists.

Training and Certification followed next with interesting presentations by Chrisine Martinez, President of the AAF, Assocation des Archivistes Francais. AAF. Scott Goodine, President of the Association of Canadian Archivists who gave an overview of training course for archivists in Canada with the last session given by Cindy Smolovik, President of ACA, Academy of Certified Archivists, who gave us a brief talk about the process of certification by ACA USA.

Day 3 saw an unusual start to the day as Carlos Garcia Alix started the morning talking about his experience using archives in his work directing films. He gave a fascinating account of his research for his latest film on the Spanish Civil War.

The next Round Table on the future of archival associations was chaired by Berndt Fredriksson and saw active participation by delegates from Chile. Japan, Ivory Coast, Romania and Germany. Each representative gave us an overview of their association, their current projects and plans for the future. The Japanese Society – Zen Shiryo Kyo – aims to trim down its present governance structure so that there will be less administrative work and costs. In the Ivory Coast Anne Marie Tche Tche described the struggle to keep their association going and noted that the alliance with SPA has helped give them a voice in the world. German archival visions include being the voice of all archivists in Germany as well as attempting to identify the role of the archivist in society.

The congress provided a marvellous forum for everyone to exchange views and experiences. We saw how situations for associations differ all over the world but of course we do have a lot in common. The topics which were raised during the event included

• We noticed that there are both institutions and individuals in our associations and it is important to remember that employer and employee have different needs within an association.
• Certification -it is a good idea but we must convince employers of its benefits.
• In Europe and North America access is not as complicated an issue as in many other countries around the world.
• Lobbying and outreach are extremely important. We realised that it is not easy to reach beyond our immediate profession.
• It is essential that we pin down our competencies and this must be done soon.

As Fred Van Kan reminded us in his summing up – we have a beautiful important profession dealing with a wide range of issues – history, human rights, identity and memory. We must never forget this or the value of association.

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