of ethics, examples of professional profiles and competency profiles, and of job
descriptions.
In the tradition of the meetings of what was the Underground Committee on
Professional Training, the Paris meeting, held in early June 2009, was "a great
vintage": cool and groovy, adding an unforgettable chapter to the story of this
project.
The project was successfully presented in Malta, in November 2009, in the
framework of the ICA International Conference of the Round Table on Archives9.
Berndt Frederiksson acted as ambassador of the group, while Thijs Laeven was
moderating the session which included an overview of the ARMA model by Ineke
Deserno. The lively debate which followed the presentation tends to prove that
our work is expected, and will be largely commented by the community, especially
by non-European colleagues, as the original working group is European. But
the concept of the project itself aiming to provide not a universal model but a
methodology should be helpful in any context.
And indeed taking the context into account for the definition of competencies
is essential, not only from a technological point of view. Young professionals
speaking at the Malta conference insisted on emerging jobs10, digital natives'
culture, and mobility (which also needs specific competencies, maybe tacit...).
This was not presented from the point of view of the technological adaptation (as
digital natives, they are mastering technologies), but having in mind a different
kind of relationship with society in general, the professional environment and
users in particular. Amazingly, they insisted not on the need to have a good
command of technologies, but on their ability in acquiring, preserving, reviewing
and updating what they think are the core competencies of an archivist.
These late steps lead the group to meet again in Girona (Catalonia) by the
end of January 2010, to refine the manual structure, and once again debate
on the definition of what we are talking about: competencies, competency
profile, professional profile, job profile, etc. Trying once again to make different
(European) cultures get along! The group has decided to meet next October
in Finland, at the invitation of the National Archives, to have a workshop in a
country which does not have, by now, developed a competency model: this will be
an excellent opportunity to test the methodology!
Denouementfrom a European conference to the other
The 2010 European conference, which will take place in Geneva in April, will be
an important moment for the project. The first final version of the methodology
will be presented to the SPA steering committee for assessment. Four years after
the Warsaw resolution, the group can be proud of what has been managed to do
up to this point. The issue of professional competencies is, from my point of view,
the most delicate we have to tackle, as it deals with our identity, as professionals,
and as persons. It completely depends on us to change/refine/update the vision
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PROFESSIONAL
9 The conference took place from 17 to 20 November 2009; the title was "Imagining the 21st century archi
vist: new strategies for education and learning".
10 There is an increasing number of job profiles with various names, which in fact are describing what an
archivist would be supposed to do.
