Who Is This Godot? The Academy of Certified Archivists and Graduate Archival Education

Abstract

Since the 1936 founding of the Society of American Archivists, the archival field has struggled with the challenges inhering in professionalization, namely the merits or demerits of institutional or individual accreditation or certification. In 1989, SAA helped establish the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), which confers individual certification by written examination. In 1993, ACA modified its bylaws to require graduate education to be eligible for the exam. But, although a relationship clearly exists between certification and education, scholars have not explored, much less profited from, the insights of archival educators. This qualitative case study uses semistructured interviews with thirty-three tenure-track or tenured faculty program directors from graduate archival programs across North America to understand how educators perceive and address certification. Findings reveal that educators are ambivalent about certification, its relationship to graduate education, and its vocational value. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and offer suggestions for research and practice.