"The imperative of challenging absolutes" in graduate archival education programs: Issues for educators and the profession

American Archivist

Volumn 63, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 380-391

  Cook, Terry ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 17444374576     PISSN: 03609081     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17723/aarc.63.2.27438310j3390088     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (11)

1. See Eric Ketelaar, "Archivistics Research Saving the Profession," appearing elsewhere in this issue of the American Archivist, as well as his probing essay, "Archivalisation and Archiving," Archives and Manuscripts 27 (May 1999): 54-61.
2. Tom Nesmith, "'Professional Education in the Most Expansive Sense': What Will the Archivist Need to Know in the Twenty-First Century," Archivaria 42 (Fall 1996): 92 emphasis in original. I am grateful to Tom Nesmith for comments he made on an earlier draft of this essay, and for his leadership and inspiration in the Archival Studies program at the University of Manitoba.
3. Bill Leggett, "The Case for a 'Broadly Based' Education," Queen's Alumni Review, (March/April 1999): 7.
4. See Angelika Menne-Haritz, "Archival Training in a Changing World," appearing elsewhere in this issueof the American Archivist.
5. Much fuller statements of this research-based and scholarly approach to archival work were articulated by Tom Nesmith, "Archives from the Bottom Up: Social History and Archival Scholarship," Archivaria 14 (Summer 1982): 5-26
6. and Terry Cook, "From Information to Knowledge: An Intellectual Paradigm for Archives," Archivaria 19 (Winter 1984-85): 28-49.
7. Nesmith argued that archivists should be a kind of historian specializing not in the subject content of records as "regular" historians do, but rather in the history of the actual record itself and of patterns of recorded communication over time. Cook posited that historical skills and methodologies applied to archival records, creators, and their many rich interrelationships would allow archivists to create new contextual knowledge to perform better all archival functions and activities. Both essays are reprinted in Tom Nesmith, ed., Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance (Metuchen, N.J. & London: Scarecrow Press 1993)
8. which also contains other examples of this contextualizing, research-based approach to archives in working practice. How this approach translates from workplace into educational programs is best outlined in Tom Nesmith, "Hugh Taylor's Contextual Idea for Archives and the Foundation of Graduate Education in Archival Studies," The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor, edited by Barbara Craig (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992).
9. See Menne-Haritz, "Archival Training in a Changing World.
10. See David Wallace, "Survey of Archives and Records Management Graduate Students at Ten Universities in the United States and Canada," appearing elsewhere in this issue of the American Archivist.
11. Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland, "Archival Research: A 'New' Issue for Graduate Education," appearing elsewhere in this issue of the American Archivist.