environments, the French competency model for instance obeys the opposite logic, which is to improve working conditions and advocate for the profession. These two approaches do not seem irreconcilable, but rather complementary. Yet there is another significant difference which shows a deep divergence as regards the conception of professional skills and the relationship between core competencies, and "related" competencies. The French model includes many of them, but only if they are linked to one of the activities of archives and records management. On the contrary the "areas" covered by the ARMA model document are very different from our chapter titles: "Business Functions", "Records and Information Management", "Risk management", "Communication and Marketing", "Information technology", "leadership". Their vocabulary is clearly much more influenced by the global managerial logic of companies than ours. It seems that the working environment of the archivist/records manager wins over professional specificity. Again, we find Hans' parallel worlds, the industrial society and information society... Having this in mind, the working group started working on the basis of case studies, focusing on specific areas. The Association of Catalonian Archivists had done a tremendous work on legal texts and regulations, developing a dedicated database, while Jari Lybeck studied some archival laws from the point of view of competencies. The French Association used its experience to go deeper into the methodology, and the communication aspects. Berndt developed the reflection he presented in 2006 in the Warsaw conference, starting from theoretical approaches to develop competency models, describing what we do, and looking then to "reality", that is what we should do. Thijs Laeven had worked on different projects that developed job /professional profiles, which helped the group to reflect on definitions of "task profiles", "competency profile", and what the concept of "competency" covers. Maria del Carmen started from the Spanish system of examination qualification to try to give answers to these questions: what functions or jobs need a formal archival qualification? What qualifications are needed for having an archives or records management job? Finally Patricia focused on the issue of accreditation from the Society of Archivists experience. The results of these reflections were presented in Paris, in the first meeting of the "operational working group". They would nourish a fruitful debate which enables the group to define the outlines of the handbook. I will not betray a secret revealing them, as when you read these lines, the handbook will have been written, presented, and hopefully used and criticized by a number of professionals. The handbook will comprise several chapters, dealing with the following issues: The conduct of a competency model project: why developing a competency model? What is its usability? This chapter would include a development about a vision on the profession/professional/professionalism/professionalization, and a reflection about the influence of "academisation" (a neologism created by the group?) and the practice. The benefits and achievements of such a project, the "ownership" of the outcome, the actors and the context will be considered as well. PROFESSIONAL 108

Periodiekviewer Koninklijke Vereniging van Archivarissen

Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2010 | | pagina 110