"I'm an Archivist" "What's that?"

As many of you know, I subscribe to the Society of American Archivists emailing alias, and am, in short, a complete archives dork. Anyway, Last night, I sent in a question asking about differences in graduate degrees. This prompted a flood of discussion, mostly on-list, but some off-list as well.

Basically, I asked if a Masters in Archives or Library Science is better. Here is one related thread I found particularly interesting and true:


When you ask Joe Blow on the street what a librarian is, they instantly know SOMETHING about what a librarian does. When you ask the same person what an archivist is, they give you that quizzical look. Thus the need last year for the short saying of what an archivist does.

We cannot hope to make a name for ourselves, to take control of our destiny, until we are able to define for ourselves what an archivist is and what an archivist does. Heck, most people can't even pronounce it right - they pronounce it 'arch I vist" instead of "arch-iv-ist" with the long I instead of the short i. I've known archivists who can't say it correctly. If you cannot pronounce your professional title correctly, how can you hope that the person on the street will know what it is you do and the importance you have in society?