IO de rijksoverheid vraagt
wetenschappelijk archiefambtenaar
2e klasse
be to see all those estrays now representing Maryland in 'Autograph collections
up and down the East Coast' come marching home!
Morris L. Radoff in his letter of transmittal to the Hall of Records Com
mission of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Archivist of the Hall
of Records, State of Maryland, p. 8 (Annapolis, 1963.)
Mystical Jargon
Another suggestion let's talk straight and simpleLet's cut out the
mystical management jargon. Talk to the operating people in their terms.
Here's an example of what, I think, we should not do. Someone was writing about
a records system and they said, 'When one variable is cross-tabulated against
another by means of the procedure described above, the minimum total number
of manipulations of category cards is equal to the number of cards in the variable
that has the smallest number of categories plus the product of the number of cards
in one variable and the number of cards in the other.' Now, all this guy was
talking about was the peekaboo card system where you match punch cards by
holding them up to the light to see which ones have holes in the same position,
but that was this specialist's description.
(William B. Rice, in an address before the Interagency Records Admi
nistration Conference, Washington, D.C. on May 17, 1963, as reported in
IRAC, What's Wrong With Records Management, p. 14 Washington, 1963.)
Advice
Furthermore, the archivist should not be disturbed by the distorted ideas of the
unenlightened part of the public. It knows as much about archival work as a
watchman about Newton's theory of light, and both may be pardoned for
prattling about things they do not understand.
(Karl Friedrich Bernhard Zinkernagel, Handbuch für angehende Archivare
und Registratoren, p. 108 (Nördlingen, 1800). Translated by Ernst Posner.)
Dilemma
Archivists in preserving documentary information for posterity are in a dilemma.
All of you know, I am sure, of the boy who asked a librarian for a book about
turtles. After looking over the very heavy tome she had given to him he returned
it saying it would not do it had more about turtles than he wanted to know.
The archivists feel juist like that boy; there are more records designated as
permanent than anyone is ever going to want to use and these records too often
tell a lot of things no one wants to know and fail to tell what needs to be known.
The data we are preserving for posterity should be significant, useful, accurate
and accessible.
(Lewis J. Darter Jr, in a talk given on Nov. 30, 1962 at a meeting of the
Interagency Records Administration Conference, as recorded in Data for
Posterity, p. 1 (Washington, IRAC, 1963).)
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African?
The secretary to the State Archivist, while on a visit out-of-state, was asked what
she did. She said she worked for the Archivist. This caused a vacant stare, and
she had to explain what an Archivist was. Enlightened, her friend said: 'Oh, I
thought that was a kind of African ant-eater.'
(Richard W. Hale Jr., Archivist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
in a letter to the editor of the American Archivist, Jan. 3, 1964.)
Ontleend aan The American Archivist, Jaargangen 1963 en 1964.
voor het Ministerie van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk
bij het Rijksarchief in Noord-Brabant te 's-Hertogenbosch
per 1 november a.s.
Taak o.m.: het aan leerlingen van scholen verstrekken van
voorlichting over doel, inrichting en gebruiksmogelijkheden
van Rijksarchieven.
Salaris, afhankelijk van opleiding en ervaring, max. f894,-,
f 1004,- of f 1117,- per maand.
Schriftelijke sollicitaties onder vac. nr. 7-1832/1242 zenden aan
Bureau Personeelsvoorziening en Bemiddeling van de Rijks
Psychologische Dienst, Prins Mauritslaan 1, 's-Gravenhage.
AOW-premie voor Rijksrekening. De salarissen zijn exclusief 6% vakantie
uitkering
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