The landscape of archival employment: A study of professional archivist job advertisements, 2006-2014

Abstract

The archival profession has long attempted to define what constitutes a professional archivist. These debates over education, training, and certification have lasted decades, however few studies have been completed on how the employment market for archivists has changed in response to these professional challenges. This study looks at almost a thousand professional archivist job advertisements between late 2006 and early 2014 to understand the current prevailing recruitment criteria. It is broader in scope and time period than other recent studies. Overall, the market was determined to be mostly stable during the study period.