The Roles of Graduate and Continuing Education Programs in Preparing Archivists in North America for the Information Age

This essay argues that the North American archival profession has not adequately dealt with educating archivists to manage automated techniques and, especially, electronic records because of a variety of structural problems in this field: There are few archival educators qualified to teach such topics, few satisfactory archival programs for handling such functions, and little research being done on these concerns. The essay presents five actions the archival community could take to rectify the dilemma: (1) expand the concept of graduate archival education, (2) make such education interdisciplinary, (3) emphasize research, (4) develop higher visibility with archival empoloyers and prospective student recruits, and (5) build a foundation for effective continuing education programs. This essay was prepared prior to Cox's assuming the editorship of the American Archivist. The essay is published as part of the CART Curriculum Conference Proceedings.