A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report

Five thousand, six hundred and ninety-nine archivists and memory workers across the United States took the time to share their experiences within the archives profession by completing the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey. The All Archivists Survey, fielded seventeen years after the original A*CENSUS collected foundational data for the field, provides a measure of how far the field has come in nearly two decades and introduces new or expanded areas of exploration, including sections on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, community archives, and student loan debt.This report shares findings on the current employment, education, and demographic characteristics of archivists and memory workers. It examines their perspectives and experiences on topics including job placement, salaries, sector differences, attrition, and key issues in the field. Further, it compares demographic data across time, with a particular focus on how the distribution of race/ethnicity and gender has changed since the original A*CENSUS in 2004.A*CENSUS II demonstrates the power of collaboration across the archives profession. In addition to the 5,699 individuals who responded to the All Archivists Survey, the project was made possible through the volunteer work of a dedicated project team, working group, and several partner organizations. This research study is funded by the Institution for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and was jointly developed by the Society of American Archivists, Ithaka S+R, and the A*CENSUS II working group, whose members represent diverse sectors and roles within the archives profession.It is our hope that the findings in this first report be shared widely and freely with the archives community so that they may be leveraged to positively impact the profession. The data may be used in myriad ways, from workforce planning, to diversifying the profession, increasing funding, to advocating for resources, to meeting professional development needs. Here we highlight the most striking key findings from the All Archivists Survey: The majority (81 percent) of respondents are employed full-time and 9 percent are employed part-time. Eighty-nine percent of employed respondents are in permanent roles, and 71 percent of respondents in permanent roles are salaried.The MLS/MLIS degree has risen in importance in the archives profession while also being more likely to result in student loan debt. The proportion of MLS/MLIS degree holders increased 52 percent since 2004, representing the highest increase of any degree type. Simultaneously, respondents with an MLS/MLIS degree are more likely to graduate with student loan debt compared with respondents graduating with other degrees, including those with a comparable degree such as an MA/MS/MFA.The proportion of BIPOC individuals in the archives profession has doubled since 2004. While the overwhelming majority of the archives profession is White and BIPOC respondents continue to be underrepresented in the archives profession, the proportion of BIPOC respondents doubled from 8 percent in 2004 to 16 percent in 2021.One in five respondents are considering leaving the archives profession within the next five years. An additional one in four respondents are unsure if they will stay or leave. Of the 20 percent of respondents planning to leave, the top three reasons are retirement, burnout, and limited compensation/salary or better compensation/salary elsewhere.The majority (61 percent) of respondents employed full-time make between $40,000 and $79,999 annually. The majority (69 percent) of respondents employed part-time make $29,999 or less each year.Approximately one in four respondents do not believe decisions related to salary, promotion, and hiring are equitable. Furthermore, nearly four times as many respondents disagree that the archives profession has adequately addressed issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access than respondents who agree.While diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals have not yet been achieved in the archives profession, there is encouraging evidence that steps are being taken to reach them. Half of all respondents have witnessed others taking action to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the archives profession.The top three challenges community archives face are funding, collection storage space, and generating awareness of the archives. Respondents, including both those who do and do not work in community archives, are relatively split on whether the challenges and opportunities in community archives are similar to the challenges and opportunities in traditional archives. Fifteen percent of respondents agree that they are similar while 18 percent disagree.The archives profession is highly educated. The overwhelming majority (86 percent) of respondents have an advanced degree, while more than one in four (27 percent) have two or more advanced degrees.The archives profession has become more women-dominated over time. Since 2004, the proportion of women in the archives profession has increased from 65 percent to 71 percent, representing a 6 percentage point increase. Conversely, the proportion of men in the archives profession has decreased by 11 percentage points, dropping from 34 percent in 2004 to 23 percent in 2021.The A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey is the only national survey of individual archivists and memory workers in the US that has been fielded in the past seventeen years. This census was administered in 2021 and builds on the foundation of the first A*CENSUS, which collected data for the archives profession in 2004. The All Archivists Survey was completed by 5,699 individuals in order to provide insight into their experiences within the archives profession. By sharing their experiences and perspectives, survey participants have created a strong dataset representative of the archives community.The All Archivists Survey expands upon the first A*CENSUS by including new areas of exploration, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, community archives, and student loan debt. This survey gathered data on key topics such as employment, salaries, educational background, and demographics as well as job placement, sector characteristics, attrition, and individual perspectives on key issues in the field. Importantly, the data collected in the survey also allows us to summarize changes in the demographic composition of the archival profession across time, with a particular focus on race/ethnicity and gender.The findings brought forth from the All Archivists Survey can be leveraged across the field in myriad ways. The data provides evidence that can assist with workforce planning, benchmarking against peer institutions, advocating for resources, and diversifying the profession, among others. This report on the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey is the first of two A*CENSUS reports. Results from the second A*CENSUS II survey, the Archives Administrators Survey, will be published in the coming months. It is our hope that the data in this report be shared widely and freely with the archives community so that it may positively impact the profession.The first A*CENSUS, administered in 2004, provided the foundation for the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey. Through an iterative process, the project team and working group provided guidance and input on themes and issues important to the archives profession in the US. Based on this process, the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey expanded or added new sections to the survey instrument on topics including diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, community archives, and student loan debt. As new questions were added to the survey instrument, other questions were retired.After the survey instrument was drafted, it went through an extensive review process that included gathering feedback from the project team and working group and updating the survey draft. In a final review process, the survey was tested through cognitive interviews with sixteen individuals representing different sectors (e.g., academic institutions, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, community archives) points in career (e.g., student, early-, mid-, late- career, and retired) and levels of seniority (e.g., individual contributor, manager/supervisor, senior administrator) within the archives profession. The cognitive interviews provided further feedback that strengthened the survey instrument. The final survey instrument was administered through the Qualtrics platform and included survey logic that activated depending on individual responses to specific questions. Additionally, answers to survey questions without a natural order were randomized to eliminate order bias.The A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey population includes all archivists, memory workers, and every person in the US who works with archival materials in any capacity, regardless of employment status or title. In order to obtain the broadest possible response, we constructed a two-pronged outreach approach.First, the Society of American Archivists collaboratively generated an invitation list through the help of a number of partner organizations. This list was cleaned and deduped and ultimately resulted in 44,884 distinct emails, which received the initial invitation. Of the 44,884 email invitations, 5,401 bounced or failed, bringing the updated sample to 39,483.Second, since our goal was to reach as many archivists, memory workers, and individuals working with archival materials in the US as possible, we created and distributed open-access links to the survey questionnaire. These links were widely publicized on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn by SAA, Ithaka S+R, the working group, and partner organizations. Some partner organizations who were not able to participate in building the direct invitation list generously helped promote the All Archivists Survey by publicizing an open-access link through their membership channels as well. All partner organizations participated in publicizing open-access links through social media channels.Data gathered through both the direct email invitations and the open-access links was completely anonymous. Names and email addresses were used for the purposes of distribution of the survey only and are not linked to survey responses. Survey platform settings automatically removed names and email addresses before creating the resulting dataset, so at no point was personally identifiable data attached to survey responses. Neither researchers at Ithaka S+R nor project leads at SAA have access to survey responses that are linked to names or email addresses.The survey launched on October 19, 2021, and closed December 13, 2021.Of the 39,483 people who received survey invitations through direct email, 4,362 completed the survey. In addition to these responses, 1,348 individuals completed the survey via an open-access link, providing a combined total of 5,710 responses. After the data was cleaned, the final sample resulted in 5,699 valid, complete responses. Due to the nature of open-access links (i.e., since it is unknown how many archivists, memory workers, and persons who work with archival materials saw the open-access link and chose not to take the survey) it is not possible to calculate a response rate for the full sample of survey respondents.The majority of All Archivists Survey respondents are White (84 percent), employed full-time (81 percent), women (71 percent), and straight/heterosexual (69 percent). The report and accompanying graphs and tables relay other demographic and employment characteristics in detail.This report contains aggregate and stratified findings from the All Archivists Survey. We analyzed the findings using frequency and descriptive analyses. For questions where respondents were directed to generate a number (e.g., At what age did you retire?), we used the average (median) and used frequencies for all other questions. In figures, either we include all answer options, the top options, or, for figures relying on Likert scales, we include the high and low end of the scales used. For example, in a seven-point agreement Likert scale, we combine “Agree” and “Strongly agree” to indicate agreement and “Disagree” and “Strongly disagree” to indicate disagreement.Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number throughout the report; due to this, figure percentages may not add up to 100 percent and answer options with very low selection rates may round down to 0 percent. For unrounded percentages, see the aggregate tables in the appendix.In order to protect the anonymity of survey participants when stratifying the data, categories with a low number (defined as having an n of thirty or less) were rolled up or removed. This approach mitigates the risk of re-identification by ensuring no individual participant can be recognized by their responses.Given the length of time that passed from the administration of the first A*CENSUS (seventeen years), the language or answer choices of many survey questions have changed, making comparison across time difficult. However, there are several questions from the first A*CENSUS that were brought forward intact, or with minimal changes, which allow data to be analyzed over time. To that end, in some instances we have included frequencies over time in this report in order to see how the archives profession has changed or stayed the same since the first A*CENSUS in 2004. Additionally, in keeping with the methodology of the original A*CENSUS, retired individuals were directed to answer employment questions from the vantage of their last position.The A*CENSUS II dataset will be deposited with the SAA Dataverse for long-term preservation and access. The Society of American Archivists is committed to encouraging and supporting archivists, students, and scholars to use and leverage the A*CENSUS II data in myriad ways to benefit the profession. The data can be used to create evidence-based and strategic action in a variety of ways from workforce planning to advocating for resources to benchmarking against peers to continuing education.This research study was led by the project team, who guided the survey development process, facilitated working group meetings, created partner organization relationships, established subcommittees, shared and promoted content, and provided feedback on the analysis and accompanying report. The members of the project team are: Jacqualine Price Osafo, Executive Director, Society of American ArchivistsBeth Myers, Director of Special Collections, Smith CollegeRachel Vagts, Special Collections and Digital Archives Manager, Denver Public LibraryMakala Skinner, Senior Surveys Analyst, Ithaka S+REarlier members of the Project Team included: Nancy Beaumont, Former Executive Director, Society of American ArchivistsChristine Wolff-Eisenberg, Former Manager, Surveys and Research, Ithaka S+RThe A*CENSUS II working group provided guidance and feedback on this research study by reviewing and discussing previous survey instruments and findings to determine what information should be captured to enable longitudinal analyses, identifying new areas of interest to incorporate into the survey, developing thematic areas of interest for a new survey of archival institutions, and assisting in identification of groups and institutions that should be invited to participate in the survey. Through several discussion and playback sessions, the working group helped determine the scope of and themes included in the survey instrument, provided feedback at key stages of the process, and mobilized their networks to participate in the All Archivists Survey. The members of the A*CENSUS II working group are: Cheryl Beredo, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public LibraryPaul Conway, University of MichiganMeredith Evans, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and MuseumJennifer Johnson, Cargill IncorporatedMeredith Lowe, University of Wisconsin-MadisonJamie Martin, IBM Corporation ArchivesGreta Pittenger, National Public RadioAaron Ramirez, Pueblo City-County Library DistrictTom Ruller, New York State ArchivesGayle Schechter, Council on Library and Information ResourcesErin Passehl Stoddart, Michigan State UniversityAudra Eagle Yun, University of California, Irvine Special Collections & ArchivesPartner organizations across the profession generously helped to promote the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey through their membership and social media channels to ensure the survey reached the widest possible audience. The groups that make up the partner organizations are: Academy of Certified ArchivistsAmerican Association for State and Local HistoryArizona Archives AllianceAssociation for the Study of African American Life and HistoryAssociation of Catholic Diocesan ArchivistsAssociation of Hawai'i ArchivistsAssociation of Moving Image ArchivistsAssociation of St. Louis Area ArchivistsAssociation of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and MuseumsChicago Area ArchivistsConference of Inter-Mountain ArchivistsCouncil of State ArchivistsDelaware Valley Archivists GroupKentucky Council on ArchivesLos Angeles Archivists CollectiveLouisiana Archives and Manuscripts AssociationMiami Valley Archives RoundtableMichigan Archival AssociationMid-Atlantic Regional Archives ConferenceMidwest Archives ConferenceNational Archives and Records AdministrationNational Association of Government Archives and Records AdministratorsNew England ArchivistsNorthwest ArchivistsRare Books and Manuscripts Section, ACRL Libraries, ALASeattle Area ArchivistsSociety of California ArchivistsSociety of Florida ArchivistsSociety of Georgia ArchivistsSociety of Indiana ArchivistsSociety of Mississippi ArchivistsSociety of North Carolina ArchivistsSociety of Ohio ArchivistsSociety of Rocky Mountain ArchivistsSociety of Southwest ArchivistsSociety of Tennessee ArchivistsSouth Carolina Archival AssociationTwin Cities Archives RoundtableThe majority of respondents (81 percent) are employed in full-time positions (see Figure 1), 9 percent are employed in part-time roles, and 4 percent are retired from an archives-related position or career. Of archivists in full time or part-time positions, or who are retired from an archives-related position or career, 89 percent are in permanent roles, while 11 percent are in contract positions (see Figure 2). Of those in permanent positions, 71 percent are salaried. Only 2 percent of those with a full time position also have another paid role, including a part time position, a paid internship, or self-employment.Fifteen percent of respondents in full-time positions held in addition to, or prior to their current role, a part-time position since January 1, 2017 (see Figure 3). Of these respondents, 40 percent ended up with a full-time permanent position with the same employer (see Figure 4). Of the 11 percent of full-time respondents with a short-term contract position since 2017, only 30 percent ended up in a full-time permanent position. The short-term work that was most likely to result in a full-time permanent position was a long-term contract. Though only 3 percent of full-time employees had a long-term contract since 2017, 62 percent of those that did ended up in a full-time permanent position with the same employer. Volunteering was the least likely to result in a full-time permanent position (19 percent).Of all individuals with a part-time position, two-thirds (67 percent) have one part-time position, and 33 percent have two or more part-time positions (see Figure 5).The majority of respondents who are employed in a part-time position (83 percent) did not report having an additional income-generating role, such as a full-time position, a paid internship, or self-employment. Of these respondents, about one third (34 percent) are currently seeking full-time work, while 55 percent are not (see Figure 6).More than half (56 percent) of respondents are in an individual contributor role and a quarter are a manager or supervisor (see Figure 7). Senior administrators or executives make up 17 percent of respondents. Of individual contributors, 44 percent are in an entry-level position requiring five years or less experience and 36 percent are in mid-level roles requiring six to fourteen years of experience (see Figure 8). Only 11 percent of individual contributors are in a senior-level position requiring fifteen or more years of experience.Only 17 percent of respondents are a member of a union compared with 81 percent who are not. Respondents who are not union members are split as to whether they would like to join one. About one third of respondents are interested in becoming a member of a union (33 percent), about one third are not interested (35 percent) and about one third are not sure (32 percent) (see Figure 9).Employed respondents most commonly work for academic institutions (38 percent), government agencies (28 percent), and nonprofit organizations (21 percent) (see Figure 10). Fewer respondents are employed at for-profit organizations, community archives, or are self-employed.The vast majority (96 percent) of respondents working for an academic institution are employed at a college or university (see Figure 11). A very small proportion of respondents work at an elementary or secondary school (1 percent) or a seminary (1 percent). Of respondents who work at a college or university, only 1.2 percent are employed by a historically black college or university (HBCU) and only 0.6 percent are employed by a Tribal college or university. The majority of respondents work at a public institution (58 percent) and nearly two in five (39 percent) work for a private not-for-profit academic institution (see Figure 12). The overwhelming majority (97 percent) of respondents work at four-year institutions with only a small percentage of individuals coming from the two-year space (2 percent) (see Figure 13).Archives/special collections are by far the most common functional units employing respondents within an academic institution (75 percent) (see Figure 14). An additional 8 percent of respondents work in the library/information science department and 5 percent work in another library unit.Forty-seven percent of respondents working for government agencies work at the federal level of government (see Figure 15). Approximately one fourth each work at the state or territory government level (28 percent) and the local government level (23 percent). Just 1 percent of respondents work for a tribal government agency. The majority of government employees work for an archives, historical society, and/or records management agency (59 percent) (see Figure 16). Twenty-six percent work for a library and 10 percent work for a museum.Unlike for academic institutions and government agencies where a clear majority of respondents work in a particular area, respondents from nonprofit organizations are spread out across several different employer types. Twenty-two percent work for a historical society or archival repository, 20 percent work for a library, and 20 percent work for a religious organization (see Figure 17). Further still, 19 percent work at a history museum, and 17 percent work for another kind of museum. Relatively few nonprofit organization employees work for a medical institution (3 percent) or genealogical society (2 percent).Of respondents working at for-profit organizations, 19 percent work for an archives-related organization, while 81 percent work for an archives or records function within a for-profit organization. Of those working for an archives-related organization, more than half (54 percent) work for an archival consulting firm/service provider and 14 percent work for a conservation/preservation consulting firm/service provider (see Figure 18). Respondents performing an archives or records function within a for-profit organization are in a variety of different industries. Nearly one in four (24 percent) are in art, media, publishing, or entertainment (see Figure 19). Twelve percent are in consumer products, and 10 percent are in financial services, banking, or securities.Of respondents who are self-employed, archival consultant is the most common role (44 percent) (see Figure 20). Fewer individuals are self-employed as audio/visual specialists (7 percent), digitization specialists (7 percent), and conservation/preservation specialists (6 percent).Two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents are currently working as an archivist or memory worker and 18 percent are managing a unit or department that employs archivists or memory workers (see Figure 21). There is also some overlap between the archives profession and other related occupations. This is shown through the 12 percent of respondents who work in another profession or occupation but who hold archives-related responsibilities. Very few respondents are teaching in a graduate archival education program (2 percent), administering a program serving archival interests but not working directly with archival records (3 percent), or retired from an archives-related position or career (4 percent).While all respondents received the question in Figure 21 and were encouraged to select all answer choices that apply to them, in Figure 22 respondents were directed to select the position that is most central to their role in the organization. Figure 22 was also only asked of respondents who are employed, self-employed, or retired from an archives-related position. Of these respondents, 43 percent indicated that their primary position is archivist. The second and third most common roles are those who are both managing archivists and are archivists themselves (13 percent) and librarians (10 percent).Within the last twelve months, the most common function respondents have spent time on is reference services and access (52 percent), followed closely by arrangement and description (46 percent) (see Figure 23). The wide distribution among functions illustrates that most respondents fulfill multiple roles within their organization.Respondents work with a large variety of physical and digital materials. In terms of physical materials, respondents most commonly work with textual archival records such as documents and manuscripts (88 percent), photographs (83 percent), and objects (68 percent) (see Figure 24). Among physical materials, respondents reported working with data sets the least (21 percent). Among digital records, respondents are most likely to work with photographs (71 percent), textual archival records (69 percent), and moving image and sound media (61 percent), and least likely to work with rare books (13 percent).There is considerable range in the salaries of full-time respondents. While the majority (61 percent) of respondents in full-time positions make between $40,000 and $79,999 a year, 27 percent make $80,000 or more a year and 10 percent make less than $40,000 each year (see Figure 25).For most pay ranges, there are no major salary differences between men and women. However, there are two exceptions. The first is at the $40,000–$59,999 salary level, where women (34 percent) are more likely than men (29 percent) to earn a salary in this range (see Figure 26). The second is when we look closely at who is making salaries above $100,000. Eighteen percent of men in full-time positions earn six figures compared with only 11 percent of women. This may be partially explained by differences in position, with men being overrepresented in leadership positions (see Figure 60). The ratio of women to men among all respondents is 3.07 compared with the ratio at the senior administrator or executive level, which is 2.44.There are no major differences in salary between White and BIPOC respondents in full-time positions (see Figure 27). The same proportion of White and BIPOC respondents make less than $40,000 a year (10 percent) and $40,000–$59,000 a year (33 percent). The largest difference is still quite small, only differing by 4 percentage points with 33 percent of BIPOC respondents reporting earning a salary between $60,000–$79,999 versus 29 percent of White respondents. Even when we roll up the data further and look at who is making $100,000 or more, the difference is still quite small, with 13 percent of White respondents earning six figures and 10 percent of BIPOC respondents earning this amount.Full-time salaries vary considerably by sector. One third of respondents working for nonprofits earn less than $50,000 annually (see Figure 28). Comparatively, only 15 percent of respondents at for-profit organizations earn that amount. Full-time respondents at academic institutions are most likely to earn between $50,000–$59,999 (21 percent) or $60,000–$69,999 (20 percent). Government agencies perhaps have the greatest variation; while the highest proportion of government agency employees earn less than $50,000 (26 percent), the next highest proportion earn $100,000 or more (19 percent). Respondents employed at government agencies (19 percent) and for-profit organizations (21 percent) are considerably more likely to earn $100,000 or more than employees of nonprofit organizations (7 percent) and academic institutions (10 percent).Approximately half of respondents in all regions make between $50,000 and $79,999 a year, with the Midwest (45 percent) having the smallest proportion of respondents in this range and the West having the highest proportion (53 percent) (see Figure 29). Forty-nine percent of both respondents in the South and New England fall in this category, and 46 percent of those in the Mid-Atlantic region do as well. While the bulk of respondents fall within this middle range across regions, there are significant differences between regions for those who earn the least as well as those who earn the most. Respondents living in the Midwest (38 percent) and South (