This post is part of the Intergenerational Conversations series.

Review of Robert H. Bahmer, “The Management of Archival Institutions,” American Archivist 26, no. 1 (January 1, 1963): 3–10, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.26.1.8hh36103506q5305.

By Caitlin Birch, Director of Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, James Madison University Libraries [PDF Full Text] | [PDF Article + Full Text]

On October 1, 1962, Dr. Robert H. Bahmer delivered his presidential address at the 26^th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in Rochester, New York. Bahmer was, at the time, both the president of SAA and the Deputy Archivist of the United States, employed by the National Archives and Records Service (which would not drop “Service” in favor of “Administration,” to make it the NARA we know today, until 1985).[1] Bahmer titled his address “The Management of Archival Institutions,” a straightforward choice of topic but an apparently novel one in 1962. As Bahmer wrote in the text of his address (published in January 1963 in American Archivist 26, no. 1), “So far as I know, no one among us has ever spoken on the problems of managing an archival institution as distinct from those of managing archives or records” (pp. 3–4). Noting this uncharted territory, Bahmer forged ahead with an address that distinguishes archival manager from archivist, identifies the primary threat to the archivist that the manager must protect against, and affirms the importance of both parties to the success of archival institutions. In so doing, he offered ideas about management and leadership and about who archivists are.

Bahmer did not write his address for me. In 1962, he could not have imagined a management role like mine: Director of Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections in an academic library at an R2 research university.[2] Both terms in my title—digital scholarship and distinctive collections—did not exist yet. It would have been easy enough to explain the latter, but the former might have sounded to the early 1960s archivist like science fiction. I am not the manager Bahmer had in mind, and in some ways my reception of his address shows it; with my 2024 perspective, I find his depiction of management much simpler than my reality or that of my peers, and I struggle to connect to his concept of archivist identity. And yet a surprising degree of what he wrote is recognizable in the archival landscape of today, although perhaps not in the ways he might have expected. Where that familiarity is the case, I see arguments for further exploration and action—areas where modern archivists might continue the conversation begun by Bahmer in 1962. In the review that follows, I summarize Bahmer’s address, reflect on what has changed and what has remained the same, and offer concluding thoughts on where the path of progress—for archivists and our managers—goes next.

Bahmer begins his address with the basic premise noted above: that managing an archival institution is different from managing archives and records, but there is a dearth of discourse on the former. His point remains true today. Although Bahmer exclusively uses the term “manage,” in this review I will treat 1962’s “management” as 2024’s “leadership.” As Peter Gottlieb and David W. Carmichael note in Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs (2019), management and leadership are two different activities; managers are “coping with complexities,” while leaders are “coping with change.”[3] Bahmer names the manager but writes about the leader; he explores in some detail the changes instituted by the upper management tier of the National Archives during his tenure, prompting us to assume that his subject is a change agent engaged in what we would today call leadership. If this assumption is accepted, then the sparse discussion of leadership in the present-day archival literature reflects the same thing that Bahmer observed about management in 1962: we are not talking about it.

Helen Wong Smith notes in her review of Leading and Managing that “writings specifically about leadership [are] seldom found in the archival literature.”[4] My own search of American Archivist and Archival Outlook in February 2024 returned only six relevant results published in the last fifteen years.[5] These results, plus the existence of the book-length Leading and Managing and the creation and growth of the Archives Leadership Institute (ALI), indicate progress but not critical mass. I had the privilege of participating in the 2020 cohort (convened in May 2022) of ALI, but ALI alone cannot equip the field with all it needs on the subject of leadership. As in 1962, we would benefit from more conversation about the skills, practices, challenges, and experiences of leading archival institutions. Bahmer’s observation of the distinction between managing institutions and managing collections reflects my own experience in leadership, and our most common educational and training pathways prepare us only for the latter. The former requires a different set of skills and strengths.

What those skills and strengths are, though, is a point on which Bahmer and I do not agree. He writes that the archival manager fulfills five basic functions:

(1) defining the purposes and objectives of his organization (within the boundaries, of course, of his statutory or other charter); (2) translating these objectives into plans susceptible of practical accomplishment; (3) selecting competent staff members and organizing them as a work force; (4) checking progress toward established goals and from time to time reevaluating both objectives and programs; and (5) interpreting his organization to a great variety of publics. (p. 4)

He chooses to pay special attention to the last function in his list, citing it as the most oft ignored by leaders. In this he may still be correct. In her presidential address to the 79^th SAA Annual Meeting on August 21, 2015, in Cleveland, Ohio, Kathleen D. Roe emphasized “the critical need for archivists to focus attention on the primacy of awareness and advocacy for archives.”[6] Her address was dedicated to the topic, precisely for the same reason that motivated Bahmer in 1962. Roe’s treatment of the subject is more compelling to the modern archivist, but Bahmer’s words could otherwise be hers: “The competent manager will know his publics and their legitimate interests and will make a positive effort to present his case to them, for the attitude of these groups will determine in the end the status of his institution” (p. 5).

When I say that Bahmer and I disagree on the functions of the leader, then, I don’t mean that the five elements he identified are no longer relevant. Rather, I mean that in 2024, they are the bare minimum. In my role, I still need to do as Bahmer says: plan strategically, assemble a strong team, manage resources, assess progress, and advocate well. But most of my time and energy goes toward people. To be a successful leader, I need to hone skills of empathy, compassion, and care; to foster a working environment where people of different identities and lived experiences all belong and thrive; to align local values with global contexts of human rights and justice; and to mentor, coach, and nurture as appropriate the talents and aspirations of individuals. The fact that I am in a leadership position today is a testament to the people-centered leaders to whom I reported, and by whom I was mentored, earlier in my career.

The difference between Bahmer’s view of leadership and mine is not only anecdotal. In Leading and Managing, the areas of emphasis for archival leaders are communication, strategic leadership, resources and budget, leadership in transformative change and crisis, building relationships within and beyond the archives, and developing leaders.[7] Meanwhile, in his study of what academic librarians seek in a library leader, Jason Martin finds that respondents most valued emotional intelligence in past leaders and most sought “people first” skills and behaviors from the leaders of the future.[8] More specific to the archives field, in “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey Report,” to the question, “Which of the following knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies have been most valuable for you in your current position?” respondents selected a top-three of “communication skills,” “ability to build and maintain strong relationships,” and “ability to manage change.”[9]

A lot has changed in the archives field since Bahmer’s 1962 address. For the purposes of my topic, one of the most notable shifts is demographic. It did not take long for me to notice the exclusive use of male pronouns in Bahmer’s writing. His eight-page address includes forty instances of he/him/his and zero of she/her/hers. I recognize that this was common practice in 1962; I also recognize that it was somewhat justified. At the 20^th SAA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, on October 12, 1956, Dr. Ernst Posner wrote in his presidential address—itself conspicuously gendered with the title, “What, Then, Is the American Archivist, This New Man?”—that 33 percent of SAA members were women.[10] He was boasting of the total, though today we see it as deficient. “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report” finds that in 2022, 71 percent of responding archivists were women, while the corresponding “Administrators Survey Report” finds 68 percent women among responding administrators.[11]

It is notable that Bahmer’s audience in 1962 was still primarily men—that the leaders among it were likely almost entirely men, though we do not have statistics—because the presence of women in management today has altered what leadership means. Consider this research question that would have been unthinkable in 1962, posed by April M. Hathcock and Jennifer Vinopal in 2017 in their chapter, “Feminist Praxis in Library Leadership”: “We decided to ask feminist leaders in the library profession how their feminist values inform and affect everyday management and leadership activities such as staffing, mentoring, policy development, and decision-making.”[12] Feminist praxis was not an identifiable management style in 1962, but in 2017, respondents to Hathcock and Vinopal:

focused on the importance of employing leadership styles and methods in the service of feminist values, such as community building, creating a safe environment, valuing diversity, empowering others, and information sharing. For all of our participants, feminist leadership centers on acknowledging sources of power and leveraging that power for the benefit of those working for and with them in the organization.[13]

The practical view of leading archival institutions that Bahmer espouses is not obsolete, but in my experience, in today’s workplace it is insufficient.

And it is not only the presence of women (and particularly feminist women) among the leadership ranks that has produced a shift. Leading in the wake of a global pandemic has altered, perhaps permanently so, what we require of our leaders. Liisi Lembinen, in an analysis of four surveys focused on library leaders’ decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic, identified the new importance of crisis management skills, shared leadership models, and the ability to protect the physical and mental well-being of staff.[14] Time will tell how persistent the pandemic’s effects are on leadership, but in 2024, in a sustained moment of collective hardship and loss, it is true that people-first management is more important than ever.

Bahmer’s interest is not only in what archival leaders do, but also in who they are (and are not). He writes that, “The manager of an archives operation must understand the substance of his program; he must have developed a philosophy about it; he must have the confidence of the professionals in his field; he must, in my opinion, be an archivist” (p. 6). This distinction was important to him because he anticipated that the field was on the verge of adopting what he terms “professional managers”—non-archivists with training in management skills, but no knowledge of archives. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe his worry was unnecessary (although of course there are exceptions to every norm) and we continue to see archival institutions led primarily by archivists.[15] I agree with Bahmer that a good archival leader is first an archivist, and I rely on my own experience as a practicing archivist to inform my archival leadership every day.

It is at this point in his address that Bahmer turns his attention to the archivist more generally. Bahmer views the archivist as a scholar above all else, and writes, “The archivist can never cease to be a student of history—he is after all working with historical materials. And his institution must take care not to erode and abrade his scholarly aptitudes by continued assignments that neither require nor challenge his professional skills” (p. 10). That Bahmer conflated archival work with historical scholarship is unsurprising; to return to the presidential address of his contemporary just a few years prior, Posner writes, “Whether we like it or not—and I think we like it—it was the American scholar who presided over our origins, and we should be ill advised were we ever to separate the umbilical cord that connects us with the mother body of the historical profession.”[16] In 1962, it was still far more common for an archivist to have arrived in the profession by way of an advanced degree in history than to have been educated and trained in an archives-specific context. The profession was arguably no closer to a distinct identity a decade later, when the next major survey of archivists was released and found that:

The most basic generalization we can make from the survey is that the archival profession is still in the formative stage. Its members are drawn from a variety of educational and occupational backgrounds, and they reveal significantly divergent professional training, experience, and interests. The bounds of the profession still remain undefined, and the professional identity of the members is uncertain. With the development of new institutes, courses, and curricula to provide essential archival training, the “identity crisis” may be resolved.[17]

Today, we know that the “identity crisis” has indeed been resolved by the shift toward the MLIS degree as the primary credential for archivists. “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report” concluded in 2022 that “the MLS/MLIS degree has become particularly important in recent years. Since 2004, the proportion of archivists with an MLS/MLIS degree has increased from 39.4 percent to 60 percent—the largest rise of any degree-type (52 percent increase).” In conjunction, the survey found that only 1 percent of respondents identified as historians, while 61 percent identified as archivist, digital archivist, or an archivist manager/administrator.[18]

Although the profession has traveled quite a distance from Bahmer’s characterization, his instincts related to that identity remain relevant on two fronts: Bahmer believed that some aspects of archival work did not require an archivist’s direct labor, and he believed that archivists should have other pathways to advancement distinct from becoming leaders of archival institutions. To the first point, Bahmer writes, “It is obvious that not all work performed in an archives establishment necessarily requires the touch of the professional. Much of the work in an archives can be safely relegated to other classes of employees” (p. 9). While Bahmer offers this view to preserve the archivist’s scholarly identity and to protect against the trend of the archivist becoming a “mere technician” (p. 10), this perspective has had interesting and arguably negative consequences for today’s archival profession.

In “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey Report,” 54 percent of respondents were anticipating in 2022 that they would soon add volunteer positions to their staff, followed closely by 51, 47, and 42 percent anticipating intern, student, and unpaid intern positions, respectively. Meanwhile, 38 percent anticipated adding full-time permanent positions.[19] In her presidential address to the 77^th SAA Annual Meeting on August 16, 2013, in New Orleans, Jackie Dooley noted the reliance of many archival institutions on volunteer and intern labor: “Employers of course would prefer to have permanent professional staff, or, at bare minimum, be in a position to pay their interns, but it can be absolutely impossible to get funding despite a manager’s dedicated efforts. From the employer’s perspective, this is one of the harshest realities of managing archives and libraries in today’s economy—and has been for many years.”[20] Bahmer in 1962 was describing a labor model that he was actively instituting at the National Archives: one that included fairly compensated, non-archivist workers performing aspects of archival work that did not require specialized training or education, thus freeing professional archivists to focus on “scholarly” aspects of the work. Followed to its natural conclusion, though, this model has evolved into one in which our parent institutions are increasingly resistant to the idea of the “professional archivist,” and those of us who lead archival institutions are increasingly asked to do more with less and fill the gaps with unpaid or underpaid labor. We have found that “de-professionalizing” some aspects of the work, as Bahmer did, has over time proved a slippery slope toward the undervaluing of the entire field.

Bahmer’s other focus regarding archival identity—non-management pathways to advancement—has a less complicated relevance today. Bahmer reflects with regret that “an archivist in order to be rewarded for competence as a professional specialist must give up his specialty and enter the administrative field” (p. 8). This was true for Bahmer in 1962 and for many of us, it remains true today. In my career, I pursued a leadership position primarily because I felt that my strengths and interests were best aligned with that path. But it would be disingenuous to deny that I also recognized it as the only way that I would see a meaningful increase in my compensation.[21] According to “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report,” of respondents who were considering leaving the profession, limited compensation was the third most cited reason (after retirement and burnout).[22] Bahmer advocates, as do many of us today, for what we clearly lack: pathways that reward and compensate experienced archivists for their growing expertise and achievements, and that do not require them to become managers. He notes the interdependency of skilled archivists and archival leaders and concludes his address with a statement I endorse: “A recognition of this interdependency is the only valid basis for large-scale archival organization” (p. 10).

In conclusion, Bahmer in 1962 offered a useful distinction between archivists and archival leaders and made the case for both. His view of the role of the leader is, in 2024, simplistic compared to the experiences and perspectives of present-day leaders, and his view of the archivist does not reflect how many archivists identify today. Yet in reading his address, I am reminded of the problems we have yet to fully solve—among them, how to produce good leaders in a field that does not often discuss leadership, how to effectively advocate the value of archives to the public, how to sustain our institutions in coexistence with ethical labor practices, and how to forge meaningful careers over time if management is not the right path for us. This is perhaps the value of looking back: not only to see what has changed, but more importantly to see what has not, and to allow that long arc of stagnation to spur us toward progress.

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[1] “National Archives History and Mission,” The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, last modified July 21, 2021, https://www.archives.gov/about/history/about/history/history-and-mission.

[2] For information about the R2 classification, see “Basic Classification,” Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, American Council on Education, https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/carnegie-classification/classification-methodology/basic-classification/.

[3] Peter Gottlieb and David W. Carmichael, ed., Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2019), 2.

[4] Helen Wong Smith, “Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs,” review of Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs, ed. by Peter Gottlieb and David W. Carmichael, American Archivist 83, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2020): 190–91, https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-83.1.190.

[5] These included notable contributions like “Leadership Skills for Archivists,” a collection of essays adapted from a conference presentation and published in 2011; and “‘Where Do I Go from Here?’: Transitioning into Mid-Career and Administrative Roles,” a Q&A published in 2020. See George Mariz, Donna E. McCrea, Larry J. Hackman, Tony Kurtz, and Randall C. Jimerson, “Leadership Skills for Archivists,” American Archivist 74, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011): 102–22, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.74.1.h65171q8q115557g. See also Crystal Rodgers, Maija Anderson, Erin Passehl Stoddart, and Cris Paschild, “‘Where Do I Go from Here?’: Transitioning into Mid-Career and Administrative Roles,” Archival Outlook (March/April 2020): 10–11, https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=652702&ver=html5&p=12.

[6] Kathleen Roe, “Why Archives?,” American Archivist 79, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2016): 7, https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.79.1.6.

[7] Gottlieb and Carmichael, ed., Leading and Managing.

[8] Jason Martin, “What Do Academic Librarians Value in a Library Leader? Reflections on Past Positive Library Leaders and a Consideration of Future Library Leaders,” College & Research Libraries (September 2018): 806.

[9] Makala Skinner, “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey Report,” Ithaka S+R, last modified January 31, 2023, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.318227.

[10] Ernst Posner, “What, Then, Is the American Archivist, This New Man?,” American Archivist 20, no. 1 (January 1957): 5, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.20.1.10h7186h04u21887.

[11] Skinner, “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey Report.” Makala Skinner and Ioana G. Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report,” Ithaka S+R, last modified August 22, 2022, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.317224.

[12] April M. Hathcock and Jennifer Vinopal, “Feminist Praxis in Library Leadership,” in Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership, ed. Shirley Lew and Baharak Yousefi (Sacramento: Library Juice Press, 2017): 148.

[13] Hathcock and Vinopal, “Feminist Praxis in Library Leadership,” 162.

[14] Liisi Lembinen, “Academic Libraries’ Leaders’ Decision-Making During the COVID-19 Crisis,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 49 (2023), doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102709.

[15] According to “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrator Survey Report,” only 11 percent of administrators surveyed in 2022 had fewer than five years of archival experience, while a significant majority (72 percent) have at least eleven years.

[16] Posner, “What, Then, Is the American Archivist,” 7.

[17] Frank B. Evans and Robert M. Warner, “American Archivists and Their Society: A Composite View,” American Archivist 34, no. 2 (April 1971): 172, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.34.2.0x22g543tw113uq1.

[18] Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report.”

[19] Skinner, “A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey Report.”

[20] Jackie Dooley, “Feeding Our Young,” American Archivist 77, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2014): 18, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.77.1.8251111605h22917.

[21] Paschild reinforces this point: “To speak bluntly, it’s also one of the few ways to make more money in our profession.” See Rodgers, Anderson, Passehl Stoddart, and Paschild, “‘Where Do I Go from Here?,’” 11.

[22] Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report.”