Your job sounds incredibly cool, I'm curious about it!!
I'm assuming you're from the US–I'm not, so I haven't heard of anyone who does archiving for a living in my circles.
If you're comfortable talking about it, I was wondering: Is it like library science, something you have to major in? Do you work independently or with a library? Is it always related to the government or could an archivist work independently/ with private orgs as well
I would also love to hear what you do on a day-to-day basis at your job!
🦭
Hi there, thank you for your kind words! It is indeed a very cool job and I'm very happy to have landed in this field. I don't think there are super many people who can honestly say "I'm looking forward to work basically every day" and I feel very lucky to be one of those people.
I'm not from the US, I'm from (and in) Germany, and the few times I've talked about this topic with Americans and Canadians, it sounded to me like the position I have basically isn't a thing in North America at all. That doesn't mean "archivist" as a field - of course there are archivists in both the US and Canada! - but my specific position/job description.
It's called "Stadtarchivar(in)" ("city archivist") and is part of local government; my office is in the town hall. Every city of a certain size is supposed to have one, although many only do so begrudgingly because the need for it is notoriously underestimated and people just don't really understand what it is that we do. It's one of those jobs where people realise when it suddenly doesn't exist anymore or when there's a marked change compared to how things were before, but if everything is just going well, we kind of fly under the radar a lot (which has both good and bad sides).
As for your questions in particular (and please be advised that everything which follows naturally only applies to Germany; I cannot speak on how it works in other countries whatsoever):
Is it like library science, something you have to major in? Stuff like this is always hard to answer because our educational system is completely different to that of every English-speaking country (which most of tumblr hails from). We don't have "Library science" as a subject you major in here - as I understand it, it's a regular subject you can choose at university in the US (and possibly in the UK as well?) but that's not how it works here because it technically falls under the trades moreso than academia, at least education-wise.
First things first and regarding me personally:
I'm actually a mediaevalist. I have a bachelor's in Germanistik ("German Philology") and Catholic Theology, a master's in Germanistische Literaturwissenschaften ("German Literary Studies"), and half a doctorate in Deutsche Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters ("German Language and Literature of the Middle Ages"); I didn't finish the last one, though, hence the "half of". I started focussing on Handschriftenkunde ("Codicology", which just means "Manuscript Studies") very early on in my university career; my specialties are Editionswissenschaften ("Editorial Sciences") and, more importantly, Schriftkunde - deciphering and categorising historical handwriting, basically.
I got into this job purely by chance at the lowest point in my life. It was held by an old coworker of my sister's best friend and they were looking for a temporary assistant for him. My sister's friend immediately thought of me and put me into contact with what is now my predecessor. I applied, got the job, moved two hours away into temporary housing, and fell in love with the job on the very first day. My predecessor, meanwhile, was dissatisfied with a lot of things and not even four months after I arrived, he left for another (much better-paying!) job at a museum near where his wife is from. So without doing much other than generally good work, I was promptly promoted into his position and have been here ever since.
So that's it for me, but you were asking about the educational path in general:
About half of all city archivists at least in Bavaria (IDK about the other German states) have, like me, no formal archival training. At meetings, I'm always the outlier as the sole germanist since basically everyone else is a historian but the principle applies to everyone no matter their former major.
There is a master's programme called "Archivwissenschaften" ("Archival Sciences") which is an option at... I think four or five universities in the country, with Potsdam being the one you encounter most often, but to even be considered there, you already need to have a master's degree in another subject, most commonly History.
But if you want to get into Archival Sciences straight out of school, you need to apply at one of the two Archivschulen ("Archival Academies/Schools") in the country - Munich if you're from Bavaria, Marburg if you're from anywhere else. They have only a very limited number of people they accept each year and there are several tracks you can choose which has to do with what kind of school you went to (there are, roughly speaking, three different types of secondary schooling in Germany, which each allow you access to different types of higher education), how good your grades were, how academic you want your job to be, and the different tiers for German civil servants which are way too complicated to explain in another language and in answer to a question it's only tangentially related to, so you'll just have to accept that as-is.
There's also the highest "tier" for an archival career which is basically a graduate programme but in practice looks like regular archival schools with a more academic twist and preparing you for the most important archival positions in the country. You need to have a doctorate already completed before you can even start that and they take like five to ten people every other year, so you can imagine that only a literal handful of people get into that.
All of these have their exact equivalents in the Library Sciences, btw, which neatly brings us to your next question.
Do you work independently or with a library? Neither. Like I already alluded to above, archives and libraries are definitely sister disciplines and their formal educational paths mirror each other but in practice, I don't have anything to do with our city's library, work-wise, unless we actively decide to do a project together (they got a new director earlier this year and we already decided that we do want to do that, which is exciting!).
But they're also fundamentally different regarding the materials they work with - libraries deal with printed, publically available, and mass-produced works (i. e. books, magazines, newspapers), while archives deal with (largely) unique documents specific to one area, be that geographical or metaphorical (i. e. "all documents produced by [institution]", "the complete writings of [person]", "everything by people who did [activity] in our city").
I'm a regular public servant and employed by the city.
Is it always related to the government or could an archivist work independently/with private orgs as well? City and state archivists naturally and logically always work for the government, but many private organisations have them as well! Especially the big ones, obviously - Siemens, BMW, Deutsche Bank all have a so-called "Firmenarchiv" ("Company Archive"), which are all in-house institutions just like when a company has its own lawyers - but I've met a number of Wirtschaftsarchivare ("Industry/corporate archivists") over the years working for companies or institutions I had never before heard of in my life.
There also the small group of Adelsarchivare ("Aristocrat's/nobility's archivists") which is basically the same as those working for companies except it's for noble families. They are basically Lord So-and-So's private archivist, which I imagine can be both really cool and really draining, depending on who the noble in question is. I met the head archivist for the Fugger family - a very well-known noble family from the city of Augsburg who have been around for centuries - two years ago and he seemed to be really enjoying his work and much appreciated by the family. It was very funny when another one of the Adelsarchive kept saying "Der Fürst..." as in "The lord/prince said this-and-that" about his employer; like, it is that guy's title but it still felt a bit alien.
I guess an archivist could work independently but I'm not sure there'd be much of a demand for one, honestly. I might be wrong, though!
I would also love to hear what you do on a day-to-day basis at your job! It varies hugely. I once called myself "the endpoint of our city's administration" when talking to our local newspaper and that's technically and officially the biggest part of what I do - deal with all the paperwork (both literally and electronically) my coworkers don't need anymore. That means keeping all documents for a certain (legally-mandated) amount of time and then deciding whether it's worth being kept for eternity or whether I can simply throw it away. I also have a huge backlog in this area - huge meaning "literal decades" - because my pre-predecessor, who started this job two months before I was born, simply didn't do it and, well, someone has to, not only because it's good practice and literally my duty but also because there's less space to put stuff every month so a lot has to go! It's interesting and generally very satisfying once you're done but it can be really tedious while in the midst of it.
The other big part of what I do is answering questions from and doing research for people - both the general public and my coworkers. About half of that is with regards to genealogy - people wanting to learn about their family from a hundred years ago, but also certificates needed pertaining to the estate of a diseased person, most commonly requested by notaries - and half is miscellaneous other stuff; historical buildings are probably the most common (that's where the email by the teenage girl which probably led you to my blog in the first place fits in) but there's also a lot about clubs, companies, or specific professions, as well as just a ton of truly random topics. I've long said that there's no topic so outlandish that you won't find at least one old man in my town who's immensely interested in it.
Those are the two big parts, but in the course of a day, I do so many other things, too (to be clear, the following is in addition to the two points above, although I obviously devote more or less time to any particular topic as needed). In the last two weeks alone, I assembled two dozens of special archival boxes; researched for, wrote, and held a speech about our train station; did a tour through the archives for our newest trainees; dusted and sponged down twenty shelves which haven't been used in literal decades; spent three days on the city website's overhaul (okay, that one was mostly because it's my best friend at work doing it and I'm the only one who's meticulous and organised enough to be of any help to him; his words, not mine); packed up fourteen boxes of old newspapers to be shipped for digitisation; negotiated with a printing company one town over on behalf of a club who'll publish a book I worked on; scanned weirdly shaped blueprints from the sixties on my very good, very expensive professional scanner I got in the spring, wowing my coworkers in the building/planning department; hosted a small archival conference (and all that that entails, like organising the catering); continued editing a book on the city's street names which will be released next year; and probably a lot of other stuff I can't think of right now.
I also have a recurring section I write for in our City Magazine as well as try to publish things in the city's social media channels at least semi-regularly. I sometimes write articles for the local paper, too, which are, to my delight, always positively received on a wide scale, but they also take a lot out of me; I did a weekly series during the summer holidays and vowed that it will be at least half a year until I even think about doing something for the paper again, and even then only like one article, not a whole series.
So, I hope this behemoth of a reply answered all of your questions. Feel free to reach out if there's anything else you're interested in, I'm always happy to chat, although I can't promise I'll always be this prompt in answering.
(And lest anybody wonders where I've got the kind of time from where I can write something like this during the workday: I'm at home today reducing some of my accrued overtime. I also finished decorating my flat for Christmas and now I'll hang up my laundry and go and eat lunch and play some video games afterwards.)
hi!!! i saw that you're an archivist and im struggling to find a job after graduating (english studies). i was wondering if youd feel comfortable sharing how you ended up becoming an archivist? (feel free to ignore this ask if its too personal, or if i should reach out in private)
thanks soo much!!!! have an awesome day :))
Hi there, thanks for your ask, which isn't too personal at all!
I already gave a very long answer here and a short-ish summary and a little elaboration on one point here.
If there's anything else you'd like to know in particular, please feel free to reach out again - it might take me some time to get back to you because I'm quite busy at the moment but I'll definitely try and answer any question you might have.
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A KitchenAid stand mixer!
They come in such fun colours and with so many additional pieces and gadgets and whatnot and I've had my eyes on them for like ten years. But one set costs as much as the wardrobe I plan on getting which definitely needs to come first.
hi, i saw a post of yours that mentioned being an archivist and I was wondering if you had any advice on how to get into the field? Totally alright if not, i was just excited to see someone in the career I’m interested in. Thank you!
Hello hello, I already answered that question here, although I'm not sure how helpful that really is (in general, but also and especially if you don't happen to be in Germany).
And regarding the keyword "advice" in particular (as opposed to rambling about educational mechanics and structures), that answer's third paragraph is really all the wisdom I can bestow on anyone I'm afraid.
