Canadian Archivists: What types of people are they?

Archivaria

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 79-92

  Craig, Barbara L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

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EID: 32644479050     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. "A Look at a Bigger Picture: The Demographic Profile of Archivists in Canada Based on a National Survey" was published in Archivaria 49 (Spring 2000), pp. 20-52.
2. A preliminary report of the temperament data was delivered orally at the Association of Canadian Archivists' meetings in Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 1998. At the same session, Ann Pederson presented a preliminary report on the characteristics of the archivists working in Australia and Charles Schultz reported on his administration of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter to a sub-set of archivists working in the United States. Ann Pederson subsequently expanded her Australian data for a presentation to the Australian Society of Archivists in the autumn of 1999. Her paper is available at http://www.archivists.org.au/events/conf99/pederson.html.
3. Charles Schultz has published his temperament data in "Personality types of archivists," Provenance xiv (1996), pp. 115-35.
4. A number of Web sites provide information about personality and temperament testing. The Keirsey site has much useful information on type testing and can be found at http://www.keirsey.com.
5. An academic, Dr. C. George Boeree, has a Web site with numerous informative articles on personality theory and theorists as well as temperament typing: http://www.ship/edu/~cgboeree/perscontents.html.
6. Finally, it is well worth visiting the site of the Temperament Research Institute http://www.tri-network.com.
7. This site contains a number of useful articles by phychologist Linda Berens.
8. David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types, 5th ed. (1984), pp. 3-4.
9. David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types, 5th ed. (1984), pp. 27.
10. Individuals may take the test electronically at the Keirsey Web site http://www.keirsey.com.
11. Ann Pederson responded to many concerns expressed about temperament typing in "Understanding Ourselves and Others: Australian Archivists and Temperament," pp. 11-12. This paper resides at http://www.archivists.org.au/events/conf99/pederson.html. I provide some of these below. They were downloaded 2 February 2001. (1) "Type research insults individuality.
12. A good way to get a sense of the difference between the preferences in each profile is by pairing opposite words and expressions chosen in repeated testing. Cue words which establish the contrast between the Extrovert and Introvert are: "sociability versus (vs) territoriality; interaction vs concentration; external vs internal; breadth vs depth; extensive vs intensive; multiplicity of relationships vs limited relationships; expenditure of energies vs concentration of energies; interest in external events vs interest in internal reactions. See Please Understand Me, p. 25.
13. Cue words for distinguishing preferences of "S" or "iN" behaviour are: "realistic vs speculative; experience vs hunches; perspiration vs inspiration; down to earth vs head in clouds; practical vs ingenuity; sensible vs imaginative; fact vs fiction; utility vs fantasy; past vs future." See Please Understand Me, p. 25.
14. Cue words which sound good either to the "J" or to the "P" person are: "settled vs pending; decided vs gather more data; fixed vs flexible; plan ahead vs adapt as you go; run live vs let life happen; closure vs keep options open; planned vs open ended; decision making vs treasure hunting; completed vs emergent; decisive vs tentative; wrap it up vs something will turn up; urgency vs there is plenty of time; deadline vs what deadline; get the show on the road vs let's wait and see."
15. Please Understand Me, p. 25-26.
16. Cue words establishing the division between the "T" and the "F" person are: "objective vs subjective; policy vs social values; laws vs extenuating circumstances; justice vs humane; analysis vs sympathy; criterion vs intimacy; firmness vs persuasion; impersonal vs personal; categories vs harmony; standards vs good or bad; critique vs appreciate; allocation vs devotion."
17. Please Understand Me, p. 25.
18. A detailed narrative portrait of each of the sixteen types is provided in the appendix to Please Understand Me, pp. 167-207.
19. A comparison of the data from the three surveys will be presented in a joint paper to be published in 2001 in an international archive journal.
20. Anne Pederson and I conducted a straw poll of our audience at the SAA session " 'A' is for Attitude" at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists in Chicago in 1997. The archivists in the audience, which included professionals and managers, identified personal characteristics they valued in their working relationships and ones they sought in their new employees. While no archivist would ever claim expertise as a psychologist or social therapist, there remains, nevertheless, key traits of character that archivists, as employers and colleagues, consider indispensable - and as potential employers we devise questions which are aimed at discovering the habit and temperament of prospective employees.
21. Keirsey Temperament Sorter, [copyright] Keirsey, 1995. PN Boox, Box 2748, Del Mar, CA, 92014, USA. 800-754-0039.
22. The population for the Canadian survey was the membership of the ACA as of March 1998. At that time the total membership in all categories was 701. The universe for the survey was established by stripping the foreign, institutional, and general members from the list, giving 450 professional, student, honorary/life, and sustaining members. A sample of 420 was drawn randomly from the modified list. researchers in Australia and the Unitd States and announced our intention of reporting results at the ACA annual meeting in Halifax in May 1998. Confidentiality of information was assured and the voluntary nature of participation was reiterated. A reminder was sent to those who did not respond and, following a further period, a second package was sent. Experts in the field find that the four-part mail survey achieves high rates of response and our experience bears out this conclusion.
23. The frequencies for the world population which has taken the KTS at the Keirsey Web site are provided at the http://www.keirsey.com
24. The number in January 2001 was 6,259,953. The ACA population was constructed by removing the twenty (20) who did not respond to "Part A" and the twenty-six (26) whose profile was mixed or unclassifiable. ACA population for Table 1 is 256.
25. The frequencies for the world population which has taken the KTS at the Keirsey Web site are located at http://www.keirsey.com.
26. The number in January 2001 was 6,259,953. The ACA population was constructed by removing the twenty (20) who did not respond to "Part A" and the thirteen (13) whose profile was mixed or inconclusive. ACA population for Table 2 is 269.
27. The frequencies for the world population which has taken the KTS at the Keirsey Web site are located at http://www.keirsey.com.
28. The number in January 2001 was 6,259,953. The ACA population was constructed by removing the twenty (20) who did not respond to "Part A" and the three (3) whose profile was mixed or unclassifiable. ACA population for Table 3 is 279.
29. The frequencies for the world population which has taken the KTS at the Keirsey Web site are located at http://www.keirsey.com.
30. The number in January 2001 was 6,259,953. The ACA population was constructed by removing the twenty (20) who did not respond to "Part A" and the twenty-one (21) whose profile was mixed or unclassifiable. ACA population for Table 4 is 261.
31. The frequencies for the world population which has taken the KTS at the Keirsey Web site are located at http://www.keirsey.com.
32. The number in January 2001 was 6,259,953. The ACA population was constructed by removing the twenty (20) who did not respond to "Part A" and the fifty-eight (58) who were inconclusive or unclassifiable. The ACA population for Table 5 is 282.
33. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 44-47.
34. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 189-192.
35. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 192-194.
36. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 188-189.
37. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 194-196.
38. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 180-183.
39. Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me, pp. 167-175.
40. An illuminating discussion of the true self and its adapted and contextual variations is in Linda V. Berens, "Validating type - What is true type anyway?" downloaded 12 December 2000 from http://www.tri-network.com/articles/validatingtype/html.
41. Ann Pederson, "Understanding Ourselves and Others: Australian Archivists and Temperament," p. 12. This paper resides at http://www.archivists.org.au/events/conf99/pederson.html (last visited 15 January 2001).