Preparing for the Exam; or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By Jan Zastrow, MLIS, CA

When the CA exam was first conducted in Honolulu a couple of years ago, I frankly didn’t think we needed it here. After all, Hawaii is a small state, we all know each other, and we network regularly in our regional Association of Hawaii Archivists meetings. I resented the thought of another hoop to jump through, and the invasion of a Mainland concept like credentialing intruding on our Island traditions of aloha, nurturing and inclusion.

But when I took on the new position of Hawaii Congressional Papers Archivist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the CA credential was a minimum requirement. Although I had worked in a variety of archives—in a newspaper “morgue” decades before I ever imagined making a career of archives, as a fledgling archivist at the Hawaii State Archives, as a “lone arranger” in a private college preparatory school archives, and as a project-based archival consultant—I didn’t have the doggone credential. Was all my experience for naught?

Fortunately, I was hired into the Congressional Archivist position with the understanding that I would sit for the exam next time it was offered, just five months from my start date. Study? You bet I did!!! After somewhat casually perusing the reading list in the ACA Handbook, it dawned on me that I had a very short time to cover five pages of bibliography! I started by reading all the SAA “yellow books” and then proceeding to the suggested (check marked) readings in each of the domains. I took notes as I read in order to be able to review again before the exam—at stoplights, in the bathroom, during coffee breaks, you name it. Despite all my real-life experience and Library School coursework, I was amazed at how much I didn’t know … or once knew but had long since forgotten.

This, I discovered, was the real benefit of certification. Not the snazzy “C.A.” lapel pin I get to wear on my blazer, not the mystifying initials after my name, not even as a minimum qualification in a job application. The real benefit was the opportunity—mid-career—to systematically and thoroughly refresh my knowledge of archival theory, methods and best practices, and to pick up what somehow slipped through the cracks the first-second-third time around.

So what’s the bottom line?

If you are a working archivist and plan to stay in the field, go for the CA credential (and, no, the Academy of Certified Archivists didn’t pay me to say this). It’s just that nothing else states your commitment to professionalism and ongoing learning with quite the same impact. Although you may feel “certifiable” before the exam (your head abuzz with caffeine from all those late night/early morning study sessions), you’ll feel proud—and best of all professionally satisfied—to be certified after the ordeal.