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Would there be any value in conducting a thorough demographic study/ethnography of the profession? There's some statistical info about how White and WASPy Canadian archivists  (how about Commonwealth archivists!) are, but I want a more thorough analysis.  I think the last one that sort of aligns was done by Barbara Craig in 1998 done on the "temperament" of Canadian archivists. The issue was brought up about the cultural context of emotional expression. How do our demographics skew the "feeling rules" of our work places?

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I recognize this is the beginning of the discussion in recognizing all the ways that archivists are impacted emotionally in their work but I wonder whether in the future dealing of these, we'll need to separate by types of emotional work/trauma? Like in working with donors, our own mental health needs, job precarity, etc. Or are the solutions to addressing these in the field that we come up with something that can address all of these, as disparate as they are, at once?

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For archivists who are men: How can we better recognize and articulate our emotions and emotional responses to records? How can we work to be more comfortable expressing our feelings and showing vulnerability? I hope this comment doesn't come off sort of like 'Let's make this all about us men!' I'm bringing up these questions because silence among men (in this area) and conceptions masculinity that are predicated on suppressing our emotions have really toxic spill-over effects for ... basically everyone else.

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The emotional implications of participating in library school

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The emotional implications of participating in library school

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I feel like the emotional toll of this work started with me in library school. Pretty quickly on, students in my program were siloed into those who would succeed (by the department's particular narrow definition of success) and those who would simply graduate. People were nurtured along (or not), as such, often to starkly different paths. I saw so many of my fellow students either quit the program or struggle through with the weight that because they didn't fit a particular institutional vision of what a librarian/archivist could be, or because they didn't feel empowered to speak up in classes, or have the time to take on the kinds of roles in clubs, etc, that would've made them more "visible". In short, I came out of my training feeling the emotional burden of someone who is still not "enough" for the profession.

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A lot of frustrations comes from when I want to start implementing changes (including simple things like amending offensive terminology in our search catalogue) but because of the structure of the institution I work for, I need to get layers and layers of approvals from different departments, and there is a culture of fear towards any notion of "change" in my institution, owing to too many traumatic budget cuts and staffing culls. New ideas are thus often trampled out of me and it is so exhausting. I may as well scream at a brick wall. It will have the same effect.

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I'm exhausted that difficult conversations are required to be made more palatable to prominent members of the profession who wilfully ignore the obvious. If you've responded Hear Hear to a list email you're part of the problem.

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Imposter's syndrome for new professionals

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Imposter's syndrome for new professionals

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I would like to see (or find) groups for new professionals to share their experiences with imposter's syndrome and discuss their feelings and support one another. These groups could also share resources and fill gaps since we come into the career through a variety of degrees and career paths.

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Another feeling I have regularly is frustration (even anger) at the conflict between my own feelings about how the archive should progress and my institutions. It is a constant battle that often individual archivists lose.

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I dont want support groups. I don't want those hurting to just get space to share feelings. I mean yes that, but so much more. That should be a given. I want the dug-in structures that keep so many Black and Indigenous ppl out of this profession to just stop getting money until they can win back the trust.

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I worry about white people feeling bad about something related to BIPOC, and thinking the feeling is the action - that feeling bad is enough, rather than going on to work with BIPOC to enact change.

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We definitely need to make some space and budget for archivists to deal with affective records for themselves but ALSO for users. We cannot give them the burden of our grief or shame if they have to already deal with emotions related to archives themselves.

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Archives have this weird duality where we insist on objectivity and impartiality when these noble objectives are fundamentally impossible. We are shaped by society, our micro-communities and culture. We may manage awareness of our prejudices and we may lay open our impact on records through arrangement and description but objectivity is out of reach. Not only will our emotional response to records have an impact our emotions from our personal lives have an impact. There is no distinctive divide between work and the personal. I have experienced the toll of life and supported colleagues undergoing situational trauma. I agree that Archivists should step up and support colleagues. One of my greatest pleasures is providing support and advice to new professionals or those who wish to transition into the new profession.

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re: schooling, library school didn't cover anything to do with emotional work, let alone non-library professions. So much of this work (libraries and archives both) involves emotional labour and a lot of people-centred work that doesn't seem to be acknowledged. Mentioning this in the curriculum, while not a fix by any means, might help young professionals be less blindsided.

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re: schooling, library school didn't cover anything to do with emotional work, let alone non-library professions. So much of this work (libraries and archives both) involves emotional labour and a lot of people-centred work that doesn't seem to be acknowledged. Mentioning this in the curriculum, while not a fix by any means, might help young professionals be less blindsided.

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Job precarity, especially as a new professional, have certainly taken a toll on my mental health - as someone who moved for work, the lack of community in a new city made the new job/move/knowledge I'd be moving soon a really difficult time

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I think emotional work can sneak up on you and your co-archivists. Describing historical news video has exposed us all to racism, homophobia, murder coverage, and more, for example, and we've discovered that if we do too much in a day (more than 2-3 videos), we're burnt out within weeks. We've just been taking more breaks with other work but if we were contracted for this, we would never have known to expect this challenge.

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re: schooling, I found library school (which didn't cover archives specifically and certainly not non-library contexts) didn't cover anything relating to emotional reactions within the profession, either with libraries or archives. Bringing the emotional context of library/archives/information work into the curriculum would be beneficial. So much of this work involves emotional labour as well.

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re: schooling, I found library school (which didn't cover archives specifically and certainly not non-library contexts) didn't cover anything relating to emotional reactions within the profession, either with libraries or archives. Bringing the emotional context of library/archives/information work into the curriculum would be beneficial. So much of this work involves emotional labour as well.

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I wish we would stop saying "Lone Arrangers"

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Unfortunately there aren’t always ways to predict that content being processed may trigger various emotions, but that makes it all the more important to document and/or incorporate into public facing descriptions. If archivists are being triggered by processing certain materials, then users accessing this content for research later on may very well be too. By stigmatizing it and not allowing archivists to come forward and request support when needed, we also make it impossible for things like trigger warnings to be incorporated into the descriptions so that users are more prepared. If you can’t tell your supervisor that you’re struggling, how can you tell users that they might face similar triggers when doing research?

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I think that the concept that archivists must be impartial and neutral has meant that we struggle to admit to being affected by the records - if we're having an emotional response then we're clearly not being impartial...this is honestly really damaging.

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Having been a lone arranger, new to the profession and location, it is mentally and emotionally exhausting to build a community of support. It takes time. Time to build trust and respect. Personally, I found connecting with my local professional association a life saviour to me and navigating being a lone arranger. My heart goes out to all lone arrangers!

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Having been a lone arranger, new to the profession and location, it is mentally and emotionally exhausting to build a community of support. It takes time. Time to build trust and respect. Personally, I found connecting with my local professional association a life saviour to me and navigating being a lone arranger. My heart goes out to all lone arrangers!

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Recognizing neurodiversity as well as breadth of emotion.

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Impact of Ecological/Environmental Loss in Records

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Impact of Ecological/Environmental Loss in Records

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Linking with #ACAClimateDread and emotional trauma of processing materials related to destruction of environment and the records that document how we got to current climate crisis

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There's Something We Need to Talk About II in 2021 with solely BIPOC panelists? ... Many of us are willing to hash it out in a public sphere.

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Just noticing from the scan I'm not seeing Black people presenting except one - who's in the Caribbean. 

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Just noticing from the scan I'm not seeing Black people presenting except one - who's in the Caribbean. 

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As a non-white person in a white profession (where you are already having to deal with the idea that you are only there for "diversity"), it feels like you are asking for "special treatment" to deal with grief, especially if it is caused by something/records related to your community. It never even occurred to me to let people in my workplace know what I was dealing with; I felt I should just be doing my job.

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Re: Precarity. In my experience, it has felt like archivists like to "eat their young", in a similar way to the nursing profession...it is really difficult to enter into professional development spaces when there is a clique-y atmosphere to them...and never mind the costs associated with professional memberships and conferences when you are getting by on a string of contract positions that do not allow you to be part of a union or a health/dental plan.

There also seems to be this attitude that you need to prove you are worthy of a job, that you are here for more than a paycheque and so you are OK with receiving lower pay for more work.

This was very cathartic to write out. Thank you for providing this space.

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When you work within a small(ish) community you wind up going to a lot of funerals. You wind up processing the records of people you knew & were friends with in life. The records aren't traumatizing, but they don't have to be.

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There are rarely places to talk about the professional, personal and psychological fall out of devastating budget cuts in the cultural heritage sector. It's impossible to access mental health supports to deal with distress from working with traumatic records when the supports that come with stable employment falls out from beneath you.

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What I needed when I got thrown into reviewing distressing records as a precariously employed person would have been a list of highly regarded archivists who I could ask my dismissive supervisor towards contacting so that me & the other contractors didn't have to advocate for ourselves while simultaneously having our concerns dismissed & used to threaten to not renew our contracts if we didn't hurry things up. Hands up if you would be on such a list of influencers?

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Reactions? Questions? Ideas for action?