Author name: Eira

The following case study is adapted from the comprehensive Phase 3 (Collections) report prepared for the Public Knowledge program of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of a larger eighteen-month research project on archives and climate change. 

The identification, preservation, and awareness of environmental collections is uneven across American archives. Environmental collections enjoy a wide range of users, and these users work with environmental collections in different ways. One of the most important social justice movements within recent decades–the environmental justice movement–appears to be under-documented within archives.  

Ephemerality of Organizations

The environmental justice movement coalesced in the 1980s as communities of color mobilized against the placement of toxic waste sites in their neighborhoods, along with the publication of major reports that demonstrated the extent of environmental hazards near Black and Latino neighborhoods. This led to an increased recognition of environmental racism, meaning the ways in which Black and Latino communities are more likely to be exposed to toxins and pollution. Environmental justice is the recognition that due to systemic racism and economic inequality, communities of color and working class communities face disproportionate environmental harms. In 1991, the first major American environmental conference dedicated to the concerns of people of color took place in Washington DC.¹ 

Environmental justice organizations are often formed in response to a particular issue. For example, a toxic waste site may be proposed for a lower-income neighborhood, or residents of a predominantly Black or Latino community may notice increasing rates of childhood respiratory issues downwind of a factory or refinery. These organizations may dissolve due to the same organizational challenges that afflict other activist groups such as burnout, they may make the transition into a more long-term organization concerned with ongoing or new issues, they may merge into another organization, or they might disband depending on the final outcomes of an event-focused campaign.

As a result, local environmental justice organizations are highly ephemeral. Organizations may have a lifespan of just a few months or a few years. This ephemerality is not unique to environmental justice organizations, and it is common for social justice movement organizations to pop up and fall away for reasons similar to those in the environmental justice movement. Despite the frequent ephemerality of local environmental justice groups, they play a vitally important role in organizing local residents and directing media and legacy environmental nonprofit attention towards local issues that may otherwise be overlooked. 

It is not always clear what an obvious destination should be for the preservation of environmental justice collections. Many environmental justice organizations have relationships that range from friendly to hostile with large institutions. Some environmental justice organizations may distrust placing their archives with a university because its scientists are involved with extractive activities that the organization is protesting against, or it may be reluctant to share its records with an archive closely associated with a government entity since environmental justice organizations may often be plaintiffs in lawsuits involving government entities. 

It is also unclear to what degree community archives (i.e., those that preserve archives of marginalized communities outside of mainstream archival institutions²) might support the work of environmental justice organization materials. There is not a comprehensive public directory of community archives, and very few community archives participate in finding aid aggregators. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the role community archives currently play in stewarding the collections of environmental justice organizations and activists. 

Archivist Outreach Efforts 

Archivist outreach efforts have always been critical to developing strong collections. Outreach takes many forms–to existing and potential collection donors, and past and potential archives users. Outreach activities help archivists develop relationships, identify potential archives, learn more about local organizations, and build public awareness of the importance of archives. Like most activities associated with archives, outreach is a labor-intensive activity, but many examples surfaced from the literature and interviews with subject matter experts show how outreach efforts are essential to preserving environmental collections. 

Subject matter experts I spoke with from environmental justice organizations with publicly accessible archives explained that it was archivist outreach within their community networks that led to their placement of records in archives. These individuals emphasized what a positive experience they’d had with archivists. They felt that preserving their organization’s records was important, not just for the current issues they’re involved with, but also in inspiring other activists and doing their part to counteract previously lost histories or historical narratives that erased or downplayed community struggles and resistance.  

The subject matter experts I spoke with also reinforced the observations of many archivists–that activists are so busy making history that they often do not have the time or capacity to consider their own recordkeeping. This need is becoming especially critical given that so much recordkeeping is now done digitally instead of on paper. The individuals I spoke with indicated interest in donating future records, but they don’t have much clarity on how transferring their born-digital archives would work, and would likely require additional hands-on support from archivists.

In 2003, Brian Keough and Amy Schindler published the results of a survey sent to 115 groups and individuals as part of a study of New York state environmental archives. The study was  associated with the University of Albany’s Archives of Public Affairs and Policy (APAP) environmental movement documentation project. The project’s staff found that environmentalists care about preservation, but didn’t know how to manage their own records. The study showed archivists what environmental movement activists consider to be useful records–criteria that are essential to informing archivist appraisal.³ This study also found that while records could often be lost or destroyed, just as often someone in an organization, even from long defunct organizations, had held onto the records. This effort demonstrates that a focused outreach effort can turn up collections that might not have otherwise entered an archive. 

The challenges of documenting environmental movement collections shares challenges with other social justice related documentation efforts. Amy McDonald’s survey of the archival practices of nonprofit organizations representing marginalized populations echoes many of the findings of Keough and Schindler’s study. McDonald found that the vast majority of organizations that maintain their own organizational records have not contacted an archive to establish a donor relationship, and the vast majority also report that an archivist has never contacted them to solicit a donation.⁴ 

Welch’s study of environmental collections at western archives in the 1990s showed at the time that less than a third of archives reported promoting environmental research through conferences, press releases, and public outreach, often citing “lack of funding and burdensome workloads.”⁵ Although this study was published in the 1990s, and certainly the awareness of environmental issues has increased in recent decades, the concurrent lack of funding and resources for archives likely has only become worse. This finding was echoed again in an article by historian James Longhurst on the potential opportunities and barriers of increasing access to 1960s-1980s environmental movement records. Longhurst found that in his conversations with archivists, many of them were reluctant to expand their collecting because of resource constraints and existing backlogs.⁶  

Donor Relationship Challenges

Two major issues seem to be sticking points in navigating challenges with donors of environmental collections: distrust of institutions, and provenance of records. Mainstream archives are often located in large institutions, especially universities and governments, that are frequently at odds with the perspective and mission of environmental justice groups. Environmental justice activists often find themselves in opposition to local, state, and/or federal government over issues of pollution control, toxic chemical exposure, and waste siting decisions. Some organizations may also be suspicious of universities that may have real or perceived close links to industry, especially universities in areas with significant extractive activity.  

Archivists based in major research universities are also highly sensitive to the larger fundraising and donor context of the universities they work for. This is a challenge of particular concern to public university-based archives, given those universities’ dependence on a mix of funding sources that includes public money and wealthy private donors. While none of the university archivists I spoke with shared experiences about political pressure or administrative discouragement to avoid collecting in certain areas, all raised the theoretical possibility of tension in this area.  

Because most mainstream archives are open to the public, both activists and archivists occasionally mentioned issues around access. Educating environmental justice activists about archival practices is important for building trust and transparency, especially for potential donors of collections. Sometimes activists may acquire materials under unclear circumstances, and many archives will not take such materials due to both the potential legal and ethical risks of acquiring collections in which there is not clear ownership or title. Sometimes activists may avoid donating some or all of their collections because there is no way to restrict materials from certain groups of users in an archive mandated to serve the broad public. Activists are sensitive to their records potentially being used by the opposition, whether those are government officials, rival activist organizations, or industry interests. Sometimes, however, making archives publicly available can be a powerful act for an activist organization in asserting its visibility and importance. 

The outreach needs and relationship considerations between activists and archivists in the environmental justice context echo other studies of archivists’ work with marginalized groups and movement-based organizations. Archivists who have worked with other communities of activists (particularly campus-based and student activist groups) have noted the challenges associated with preserving these archives. McDonald’s study showed that nonprofit organizations frequently state a preference for working with archives and archivists that share their viewpoints, and around one in five organizations reported they “would not consider donating their records to any archival institution.”⁷ Many archivists are aware of these tensions, and have often stressed that it is important to them that the records are preserved through some means, even if not at their institution. 

1. Berndt, “30th Anniversary.” ↩︎
2. Jules, “Architecting Sustainable Futures,” 4. ↩︎
3. Keough and Schindler, “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally.” ↩︎
4. McDonald, “Out of the Hollinger Box and into the Streets: Activists, Archives, and Under-Documented Populations.” ↩︎
5. Welch, “‘Green’ Archivism,” 87. ↩︎
6. Longhurst, “‘Archival Power’ and the Future of Environmental Movement History.” ↩︎
7. McDonald, “Out of the Hollinger Box and into the Streets: Activists, Archives, and Under-Documented Populations,” 62. ↩︎

Sources

Berndt, Brooks. “30th Anniversary: The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.” United Church of Christ (blog), March 25, 2021. https://www.ucc.org/30th-anniversary-the-first-national-people-of-color-environmental-leadership-summit/

Jules, Bergis. “Architecting Sustainable Futures: Exploring Funding Models in Community-Based Archives.” Shift Collective, 2019. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mPAHOagseUoQ7dSYytM0ZosvvvEFLz6u/view

Keough, Brian, and Amy C. Schindler. “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Documenting Environmental Activism in New York State.” Archival Issues: Journal of the Midwest Archives Conference 28, no. 2 (2003/2004 2003): 121–35.

Longhurst, James. “‘Archival Power’ and the Future of Environmental Movement History.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 79, no. 4 (October 1, 2012): 537–49. https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.79.4.0537

McDonald, Amy S. “Out of the Hollinger Box and into the Streets:  Activists, Archives, and Under-Documented Populations.” UNC Chapel Hill, 2008. https://ils.unc.edu/MSpapers/3456.pdf

Welch, Todd. “‘Green’ Archivism: The Archival Response to Environmental Research.” American Archivist 62, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 74–94.

The following case study is adapted from the comprehensive Phase 2 (Infrastructure) report prepared for the Public Knowledge program of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of a larger eighteen-month research project on archives and climate change.

Emergency preparedness and disaster response is increasingly urgent for archives across the country. With climate change impacting every corner of the United States, there are increasingly severe disasters. According to the National Climate Assessment:

In the 1980s, the country experienced, on average, one (inflation-adjusted) billion-dollar disaster every four months. Now, there is one every three weeks, on average. Between 2018 and 2022, the US experienced 89 billion-dollar events. Extreme events cost the US close to $150 billion each year—a conservative estimate that does not account for loss of life, healthcare-related costs, or damages to ecosystem services.¹

It is no longer a question of if archives will experience an emergency or disaster, but when and on what scale. While cultural heritage professions have devoted increasing resources and attention to emergency preparedness thanks to several pivotal events of the last several decades, American archives are still lagging in full preparation for a variety of emergencies.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services Heritage Health survey found that 42% of US collecting institutions have an emergency/disaster plan, and archives were the most likely type of institution (52%) to have a written plan. However, there are major differences within archives based on size: 86% of medium/large archives have some kind of emergency/disaster plan, but only 47% of small archives report the same. Only 24% of US collecting institutions have both a plan and trained staff, however archives were the most likely type of institution to have a written plan and trained staff.²

The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums’s 2021 survey found 57% of tribal archives have disaster preparedness plans.³ The Council of State Archivists has recently found that a majority of state archives have an emergency plan, but a majority of respondents “rarely” or “never” practice these plans. Natural disasters are the most frequently identified risk in continuity of operations planning (other types of risks include civil disturbance, pandemics, mass shootings, and arson), and 34% of respondents participate in a regional cultural heritage emergency preparedness organization.⁴

As of today, there is no comprehensive national strategy that exists to support the emergency preparedness needs of all archives. Emergency preparedness often comes down to what local resources are available, the knowledge and commitment of leaders, and the organizational positioning of archives. For example, an archive in a large university library may have access to emergency response officials, while a small community archive might not.

There are uneven resources for archives that need external disaster response support. The Society of American Archivists maintains a National Disaster Recovery Fund for Archives, which makes small grants to archives facing disasters. Other resources like the American Institute for Conservation’s National Heritage Responders may assist archives with hands-on support during major disasters. Getting the word out about organizations that can provide assistance is crucial since many smaller archives are not as well networked into large archival associations. On the other hand, these resources are limited and cannot always scale for a major disaster affecting many archives. Organizations that face major disasters often need to navigate FEMA’s Public Assistance process.

As the insurance industry increasingly reacts to climate change by raising rates and even pulling out of markets, this will have implications for archives. The art museum sector is already grappling with this issue, as museums in vulnerable coastal areas find their insurance premiums are increasing or their coverage is reduced.⁵ Like art museums, the contents within archives are unique. But unlike museums, there is a limited “market” for archives, and this makes financial appraisals of archival collections difficult. Large archives in governments (which are often self-insured) or major universities are likely covered by their parental organization’s insurance policies, but small independent community archives, historical societies, and standalone nonprofit archives may face the greatest risk from the fluctuating insurance market.

Education and Training

Since emergencies of many kinds are likely to be faced by most archivists over the course of their careers, this makes education and ongoing professional development in this area critical for the ongoing stewardship of collections. Some subject matter experts expressed concern about the lack of training for graduate students. This educational gap is also reflected within the Society of American Archivists’ Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies (GPAS). Despite being revised in 2023, the GPAS guidelines do not mention education or training related to emergencies and disasters. Given the climate crisis and how many archivists work in small institutions in which they may be a “lone arranger” (i.e. a solo archivist), it is a serious concern that emergency preparedness and disaster response is not a core part of graduate archival education.⁶

One subject matter expert noted that disaster training should incorporate local conditions and risks. For example, many traditional disaster response training workshops that originate in the Eastern half of the United States involve wet salvage exercises to mimic responding to a flood or other water event. However, in the US West, there is an urgent need for training related to responding to soot and fire-damaged items following a wildfire.

Being able to participate in ongoing professional development related to emergency preparedness and disaster response is essential for archivists’ capacity to address these issues, especially including updating emergency plans to keep up with new approaches to disaster response. Each new major disaster brings new lessons learned in effective disaster response. Early disaster response training for cultural heritage was influenced by events such as the 1966 Florence floods and the 1973 National Archives St. Louis National Personnel Records Center fire. More recent disaster response training has incorporated lessons learned from the September 11th terrorist attacks and major hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and Hurricane Maria.

Importance of Networks

Emergency preparedness and disaster response networks are groups intended to promote planning for participants prior to an emergency/disaster, and facilitate resources and communications during and after an emergency/disaster. Ideally, these organizations also help build relationships between emergency management officials and cultural heritage professionals. These groups are a vital resource to assist smaller and more vulnerable archives. However, like all professional associations, their success depends disproportionately on a small number of enthusiastic and committed individuals.

The Heritage Emergency National Task Force formed in 1994 and was one of the first major national networks dedicated to coordinating communications and resources between the emergency management and cultural heritage communities.⁷ Since 2000, dozens of other similar organizations have formed at the state and local levels. Most of these networks have affiliated under the larger umbrella of the Alliance for Response, which is currently managed by the American Institute for Conservation. The Alliance for Response website currently maintains links to over 30 state and local networks.⁸ However, since these organizations are largely self-directed, there is wide variation in their activity levels.

Assessing Disaster Losses

Even as disasters become increasingly frequent and severe, it is hard to assess the amount of damage incurred among US cultural heritage institutions. Since there is not a central reporting mechanism for American archives, there is not a way to quantify cumulative loss each year among archives. Some archives publicly share about disasters when they happen, but many do not.

Publicly available post-disaster reports are often limited to institutional case studies. For example, much of the literature around Hurricane Katrina’s impacts on libraries focuses on the recovery efforts at specific libraries. This means it is difficult to understand the total impacts of a major disaster that affects a large area. However, there is at least one example of a major disaster assessment that can serve as a model for analyzing widespread damages.

The 2002 report, Cataclysm and Challenge: Impact of September 11, 2001, on our Nation’s Cultural Heritage, serves as a model for the kind of post-disaster cross-institutional reporting that would be very useful to the archives profession in the wake of major disaster.⁹ The report was sponsored by the now defunct organization Heritage Preservation along with the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, and conducted the month following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Combining news reports with a survey, the report described the breadth of the damages, highlighted some of the major losses (like the Helen Keller Foundation which contained many of her papers), and provided information about how organizations responded as the terrorist attacks unfolded and in the subsequent disaster recovery process.

Conclusion

Infrastructure issues are affected by larger workforce issues. Resource and funding issues have a large impact on both personnel and infrastructure. This means there are major institutional disparities between those who can mobilize for climate change adaptation and those who are falling further behind. Organizations that are unable to maintain professional full-time permanent staff are also the same organizations that often have severe infrastructure issues. We also know the least about these organizations due to their distance from professional networks. Additionally, people are an essential component of maintaining and monitoring infrastructure issues.

Unlike personnel issues, infrastructure issues in archives have more funding sources, mutual aid networks, and widely accepted best practices and guidelines. However, small institutions don’t always have the capacity to take advantage of these resources, and larger institutions often do not want to take the risk of trying something new. In several interviews, subject matter experts stressed the importance of bottom up pressure to shift leadership towards embracing new best practices and emergency planning. It’s clear that when it comes to infrastructure issues, people remain an important part of supporting and strengthening these vital systems.

1. U.S. Global Change Research Program, “Chapter 1,” 17. ↩︎
2. Institute of Museum and Library Services, “Protecting America’s Collections: Results from the Heritage Health Information Survey, February 2019,” 28–31. ↩︎
3. Jorgensen and Johnston, “Chapter 1. Tribal Archives,” 1.13. ↩︎
4. Council of State Archivists, “The State of State Records,” 16–17. ↩︎
5. Ho, “Growing Claims from Climate Change Will Prompt Art Insurance Rate Increases, Experts Report.” ↩︎
6. Society of American Archivists, “Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies.” ↩︎
7. Cooper and Hagerman, “A Brief History of Emergency Programming at Heritage Preservation.” ↩︎
8. American Institute for Conservation, “Alliance for Response Networks.” ↩︎
9. Hargraves, “Cataclysm and Challenge: Impact of September 11, 2001, on Our Nation’s Cultural Heritage.” ↩︎

Sources

American Institute for Conservation. “Alliance for Response Networks.” Accessed January 22, 2024. https://www.culturalheritage.org/resources/emergencies/alliance-for-response/networks

Cooper, Madeline, and Madeline Hagerman. “A Brief History of Emergency Programming at Heritage Preservation.” Accessed January 22, 2024. https://www.heritagepreservation.info/emergency-programs

Council of State Archivists. “The State of State Records,” September 2023. https://www.statearchivists.org/viewdocument/2023-the-state-of-state-records-a

Hargraves, Ruth. “Cataclysm and Challenge: Impact of September 11, 2001, on Our Nation’s Cultural Heritage.” Heritage Preservation, Inc., 2002. https://resources.culturalheritage.org/cataclysmandchallenge/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2017/06/Cataclysm.pdf

Ho, Karen K. “Growing Claims from Climate Change Will Prompt Art Insurance Rate Increases, Experts Report.” ARTnews.Com (blog), November 30, 2022. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/art-insurance-price-increases-climate-change-1234646985/

Institute of Museum and Library Services. “Protecting America’s Collections: Results from the Heritage Health Information Survey, February 2019.” Washington DC, 2019. https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/publications/documents/imls-hhis-report.pdf

Jorgensen, Miriam, and Britnee Johnston. “Chapter 1. Tribal Archives.” In Sustaining and Advancing Indigenous Cultures: Field Surveys and Summits, 2021. Oklahoma City, OK: Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, 2022. https://www.atalm.org/resources/reports/atalm-reports/#tribal-archives-needs-assessment-report/2/

Society of American Archivists. “Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies,” 2023. https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/Guidelines%20for%20a%20Graduate%20Program%20in%20Archival%20Studies.pdf

U.S. Global Change Research Program. “Chapter 1: Overview.” In Fifth National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2023. https://doi.org/10.7930/NCA5.2023.CH1

The following case study is adapted from the comprehensive Phase 1 (People) report prepared for the Public Knowledge program of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of a larger eighteen-month research project on archives and climate change. 

Climate change is already impacting archives. On the surface such concerns might revolve around building damage, like major events such as major hurricanes or wildfires that dominate the news, or increasingly frequent “minor” events, like burst pipes that are more likely to occur during drought or cold snaps. However, climate change is not just a facilities concern; it affects the people who steward and use archives, and it affects the archival record itself with shifts in professional practice and the documentation of a changing climate.  

At the same time climate change is impacting archives, the archivist workforce is undergoing profound changes that are ominous for the continued preservation and accessibility of vulnerable archives within a changed and transforming climate. The state of the archivist workforce will determine the capacity of archives to remain resilient in the face of climate change. 

Without a robust and stable workforce, archives are especially vulnerable to the disruptions caused by increasingly severe and unpredictable disasters associated with climate change. To address disasters most effectively, archivists need extensive institutional knowledge, a strong commitment to professional development, and deep ties to the local community. A destabilized workforce has resulted in erosion of all three characteristics among the archivist workforce, making archives more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. 

Term positions have increased across the profession since the 2008 recession. Numerous studies point to the negative impacts of term positions on individuals and institutions. Term positions are least commonly found in government archives, and more commonly found in academic, for-profit, and other types of archives. BIPOC archivists are slightly more likely to hold term positions than White archivists. Almost half of archivists under 25 have a term position, and over half of recently advertised job postings are term positions. 

Term positions (also known as contingent, temporary, contract, and project archivist positions) are typically hired for three years or less, and may or may not receive the same benefits as permanent positions. The Society of American Archivists (SAA) recently approved the Best Practices for Archival Term Positions as an External Standard.¹ This Standard discusses the impacts of term positions on individuals, institutions, and diversity, and concludes with guidelines related to designing, recruiting, and managing term positions.² 

A handful of studies reviewed for this project solely focus on precarious employment within archives. These include a pair of surveys from the New England Archivists (NEA), published in 2017 and 2022, and a survey from the SAA Issues and Advocacy (SAA I&A) section in 2019. Both studies, which targeted term archivists, revealed significant information about the economic, professional, and personal toll of term positions. 

A common finding across these three studies is the degree to which term archivists consider leaving the profession due to the stress associated with term positions. This issue appears to be growing worse over time. The 2017 NEA survey found 26% of respondents were searching for jobs outside the field.³ The 2019 SAA I&A survey found 48.5% respondents had considered leaving the profession either sometimes or regularly.⁴ Major reasons cited were precarity and financial insecurity. The 2022 NEA survey found nearly 37% of respondents had considered leaving due to issues with term labor, and the number rose to 40% for those in the field less than four years.⁵ Both the 2019 and 2022 studies found the most frequent sector for term positions was in higher education. 

Both the SAA I&A study and the NEA studies underlined that term positions do not provide financial or professional stability for term workers, and the situation is often worse than many realize. The SAA I&A survey found nearly a quarter of respondents took a second job, and more than 20% relied on a partner’s income.⁶ The 2017 NEA survey found “almost half of all respondents had held a position outside the field since beginning their professional education.”⁷ The 2022 NEA survey found 54% of respondents experienced delays or barriers to major life commitments such as buying a house or starting a family, 45% experienced financial distress, 22% experienced isolation from support networks and 20% were forced to move when they would not have otherwise done so.⁸ 

These destabilizing effects have implications for the ability of archivists to meaningfully engage with climate change mitigation and adaptation. For archivists to make progress on the potentially traumatic changes wrought by climate change, they need to have enough stability to put down community roots, build relationships with emergency planning officials, and understand the local seasonal weather patterns and how this impacts the locations in which they work. Archivists who have worked in one location for a long period of time get to know a facility’s weak points, and can anticipate that leaks may increase during a particular time of year. If there is frequent turnover within an organization due to reliance on term positions, this may mean collections become more vulnerable as the institutional knowledge about facility issues is lost.  

The SAA I&A and NEA studies also provide evidence contesting the widely held professional myth that most early career archivists who hold a term position early on use them as a “stepping stone” to a stable permanent position. The I&A Survey found of those who left their term position early, 42% took another term position.⁹ The 2022 NEA study also analyzed jobs posted between August 2020 and September 2021, and found over half of the more than 200 positions analyzed met the NEA’s definition of contingent employment. Studies of job postings are essential research complements to self-reported data on the archivist profession because this kind of content analysis can substantiate the trends found within self-reported survey data. It is possible that surveys relying on self-reported data may undercount term archivists since term positions often face cost and time barriers to involvement in professional associations.    

The largest survey of self-reported archivist workforce data is the Society of American Archivists and Ithaka S+R A*CENSUS II survey. In contrast with the first A*CENSUS, A*CENSUS II asked about permanent vs term positions, including length of term positions. A*CENSUS II reported 88.51% of respondents are currently employed in permanent positions, and 11.48% are in term positions.¹⁰ Although term positions have been the focus of immense professional attention and advocacy, the published version of the A*CENSUS II report did not break out demographics of those working in term positions.

Term positions are not equally distributed across the profession. By conducting further analysis of A*CENSUS II data by age group, time in profession, race, and institutional sector, this illustrates where term positions may have a disproportionate impact, particularly among younger archivists, early career archivists, and BIPOC archivists.

According to the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey, around 58% of respondents receive professional development funding from their employers.¹¹ However, those in term positions face enormous disadvantages in professional development funding. Term positions are more than twice as likely as permanent positions to lack access to professional development funding.

A*CENSUS II asked respondents about their interest in unionization. Interest in unionization is very high among younger archivists and those in term positions. Union interest is strongly associated with archivists under 45. Almost half of archivists between 25-34 are interested in joining a union. While permanent positions are almost evenly split around union interest or ambivalence, term positions show much more interest in unionization.  

Term positions may increasingly become part of collective bargaining demands. The newly formed union of librarians, archivists, and curators at the University of Michigan (LEO-GLAM) recently bargained over term positions in their newest contract, specifying working conditions for term positions and placing a cap on the number of term positions within the bargaining unit. LEO-GLAM’s bargaining unit includes both regular and term appointments.

The University of Michigan LEO-GLAM contract is notable because it is the only example I have found of an instrument that functionally regulates term positions.¹² While the newly adopted SAA standard is important, it is a voluntary standard. SAA does not perform any kind of regulatory or accreditation role within American archives. Reliance on voluntary standards means many institutions will likely continue to rely on term positions since there is no countervailing force. Indeed, data from the A*CENSUS II Administrators Survey reinforces the concern that voluntary standards on their own are insufficient. Only 38% of administrators expected to add full-time permanent staff in the next five years, and 61% reported they rarely or never extend permanent job offers to staff in non-permanent positions.¹³ 

1. Dietz, “Recommendation to Approve Best Practices for Archival Term Positions as an SAA External Standard.” ↩︎
2. Clemens et al., “Best Practices for Archival Term Positions.” ↩︎
3. Broadnax et al., “New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study,” 17. ↩︎
4. Society of American Archivists Issues and Advocacy Section, “Survey on Temporary Labor,” 8. ↩︎
5. Bredbenner et al., “‘Nothing About It Was Better Than a Permanent Job’: Report of the New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study Task Force,” 26. ↩︎
6. Society of American Archivists Issues and Advocacy Section, “Survey on Temporary Labor,” 12. ↩︎
7. Broadnax et al., “New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study,” 6. ↩︎
8. Bredbenner et al., “‘Nothing About It Was Better Than a Permanent Job’: Report of the New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study Task Force,” 27. ↩︎
9. Society of American Archivists Issues and Advocacy Section, “Survey on Temporary Labor,” 16. ↩︎
10. Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II, All Archivists Survey Report,” 81. ↩︎
11. Skinner and Hulbert, 119. ↩︎
12. Regents of the University of Michigan and University of Michigan Lecturers’ Employee Organization, Librarians, Archivists, and Curators Bargaining Unit (LEO-GLAM), “Agreement, July 28, 2022-April 20, 2025.” ↩︎
13. Skinner, “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey,” 45–48. ↩︎

Sources

Bredbenner, Stephanie, Alison Fulmer, Meghan Rinn, Rosa Oliveira, and Kimberly Barzola. “‘Nothing About It Was Better Than a Permanent Job’: Report of the New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study Task Force,” February 2022. https://newenglandarchivists.org/resources/Documents/Inclusion_Diversity/Contingent-Employment-2022-report.pdf

Broadnax, Micha, Elizabeth Carron, Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Kate Fortier, and Allyson Glazier. “New England Archivists Contingent Employment Study,” January 2017. https://newenglandarchivists.org/resources/Documents/Inclusion_Diversity/NEA%20Contingent%20Employment%20Study%20Final%20Report%202018-08.pdf

Clemens, Alison, Courtney Dean, Angel Diaz, Margaret Hughes, Monika Lehman, Lauren McDaniel, Kit Messick, Sheridan L. Sayles, Sarah Quigley, and Laura Starratt. “Best Practices for Archival Term Positions,” January 14, 2022. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/A4ZC8

Dietz, Kira. “Recommendation to Approve Best Practices for Archival Term Positions as an SAA External Standard,” July 26, 2023. https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/0723-IV-B-1-SC.pdf

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