An Employer’s Point of View

By Martin Levitt, CA
Originally published in “ACA News,” March/April 1999.

The American Philosophical Society Library (APS), in Philadelphia, is a manuscripts repository and special collection library, with particularly strong holdings in early American history, history of science, and Native American linguistics. The APS manuscripts staff has responsibility for some 6,500 linear feet of materials, including such American icons as the Journals of Lewis and Clark, the papers of Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson’s final draft of the Declaration of Independence. The administration of the APS has long maintained a strong conviction that the nature of the collections themselves warrant the highest level of professionalism among staff charged with their care and preservation.

In keeping with this thinking, since the inception of the ACA the APS has been strongly supportive of the CA credential, and has encouraged all appropriate staff to sit for the exam. APS leadership has found the credential a useful tool for:

• encouraging staff to assess strengths and weaknesses in their professional knowledge;
• as a means of establishing professional qualifications for many of the outside activities in which staff are engaged;
• as an encouragement, through the re-certification process, to maintain minimum outside professional development activities;
• and, most recently, as a preferential tool for assessing job applicants.

More specifically, from the point of view of APS staff, the nature of the support for the CA credential at the APS is more than just administrative advocacy: to encourage all of its archival manuscripts professionals (including grant-funded processors) to sit for the exam, APS pays for the exam costs if the candidate passes (to date, we have never had one fail); and it has been APS policy that following certification, the successful completion of the exam is officially taken into account as an important professional achievement during salary review. For senior staff involved in the hiring process, the presence of the CA on the candidate’s CV, or the willingness of candidates to sit for the exam, has become an influential factor in the decision-making process.

As an archival educator at Temple University, I also strongly encourage my students to prepare for the CA exam, using the APS as an example of the increased stature new archivists will possess in a competitive job market. APS administrators are convinced that the credential provides a win-win opportunity for both archival employers and new professional archivists, and we would encourage other archival employers to promote the credential in any way appropriate for their own institutions.