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
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