From 2020 to 2022, the Best Practices for Archival Term Positions Working Group met and wrote the document collaboratively over Zoom. During this time, we always had our audience in mind for our Best Practices. We knew that we wanted the Best Practices to reach archivists, administrators, students, and anyone working in libraries so that they could know their colleagues in the field were thinking about the ethical treatment of workers and to provide a resource for all. We wanted to create a set of guidelines to be used as a reference not only for the people creating the term positions but also for the those were in term positions.
After writing, gathering feedback from colleagues who read drafts of the document, reflection, and editing, The Best Practices for Archival Term Position Group, published the Best Practices Document to Open Science Framework (OSF) in February 2022. We promoted the Best Practices through emailing listservs in the archival field. We also committed ourselves to revisiting and revising the Best Practices in five years. The Best Practices reflect the times in which they were written, and we want to leave it open to incorporate new perspectives in the future. At the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of America Library Associations’ conference in summer 2022, we presented the Best Practices along with members of the Contingent Labor Task Force from New England Archivists. We wanted attendees to know where they could find the Best Practices and encouraged them to share their stories of using the Best Practices in their own work. We also answered questions from attendees on how to implement the Best Practices at their institutions.
We submitted the Best Practices to SAA to be endorsed as an external standard. The Best Practices were endorsed in summer 2023. This was important to us to have SAA’s endorsement so that the Best Practices can make a significant impact. The announcement of the endorsement was very exciting since we knew it enabled us to reach more people. Also in 2023, a group of the authors presented the Best Practices to our administration at Yale so that they were aware of the document and we could answer questions about it.
In 2024, our promotion of the Best Practices continues. In 2022, we were accepted by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Pocket Burgundy series to write a longer publication on the Best Practices. This enabled us to dig deeper into the history of term positions and their impact. We wrote a literature review, conducted a large survey, and also held in depth interviews with administrators and supervisors who created both term and permanent positions. This work will be published later in 2024.
In June 2024, three members of the Best Practices Working Group will present an update at RBMS. We will cover what we have learned over the past two years from our work on the CLIR publication. We also want to hear from colleagues across the field who have used the Best Practices in their workplaces and as well as any feedback that they may have from reading the guidelines. Like so much of archival work, we see the work on this document as iterative and malleable as archivists continue to face the challenge of finding support for our work. We hope to continue hearing about its effects on the archival field and how we can enhance it to help our colleagues work in ethical positions.
Monika Lehman (she/her) is an Archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Before her current position, she was a project archivist at the Beinecke and Manuscripts and Archives. Monika has been a part of the Best Practices for Archival Term Labor group since 2020. She is currently the co-chair of the Reparative Archival Description Working Group at Yale and an associate editor at the Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies.
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