September 2006 Edition

First 6 months as a regional archivist

I was appointed in March 2006 to work on a shared basis for Meath, Wicklow and Kildare County Councils. Very little could have prepared me for the challenge ahead.

My experience during the first six months has convinced me that it was a positive move to accept the position. At first the most difficult task was to assess a situation that I had never faced before. As I work mostly alone, it can be slightly intimidating to take decisions regarding the archives, especially in situations of emergency. Fortunately other more experienced local authority archivists are extremely helpful and always ready to lend a sympathetic ear when everything goes wrong.

It is only now, after six months, that I am able to start generating realistic expectations for myself. Needless to say I got quickly overwhelmed. It is a truly colossal task and everyone would love to do much more. As the job requires me to be super-mobile, it involves a serious amount of driving. I live in Milltown, south Dublin, which, at the moment, means driving to Navan every morning using the M50…hardly a dream!

The hardest thing to accept is the way the regional arrangement between the three counties limits any kind of permanence in terms of preservation, the core of our duties. It is also not giving any image of consistency and stability to the members of the public. It is almost impossible to commit to anything (outreach activities, projects) since only four months are spent in each local authority; access has to stop for eight months in each county and for these eight months, no one is appointed to look after the archives. It is also impossible to tackle the serious task of records management. On a personal level, it can be quite disheartening too.

Communication in a local authority can be awkward. From early on I had to adapt my language and talk numbers instead of archives. I also had to make the first step to get involved in different meetings, activities and to prove that archives must be considered as a permanent function of the local authority and not as an add-on activity for libraries.

Sadly, I sometimes found that the idea of professional training for archivists is still being challenged. It is quite delicate to explain the advantages of the archive service to members of one local authority, it is quite challenging to do it three times, especially knowing that other archivists tried their very best before you! The lethargy of senior management in county councils is sometimes very difficult to accept. The unit archives/archivist is rarely a priority.

As a whole, the job is equipping me with numerous practical skills that will constitute my learning experience as an archivist and also as a person. I am learning how to get involved, how to manage my time efficiently, how to work with deadlines and how to adapt my involvement level to each situation. However some people are now seriously questioning the viability of the regional arrangement. It seriously hampers any coherent and consistent progress as far as the archives are concerned. On a personal level, it has proved to be a serious blow to a balanced lifestyle.

It is now September and the Archive Awareness Campaign. I am now on a mission to raise awareness in Meath!!

Cecile Chemin
Regional Archivist, Mid-East Region