Archivist's Elevator Speeches

To help explain our profession to different audiences, the steering committee compiled several resources and examples of elevator speeches. Please reach out to the section steering committee if you would like to share your story! 

In 2025, section members constructed a few examples. 

From Holly Rose McGee: 

• "Archives hold primary resources, so, documents, photos, or recordings that are originals by their creators. Archivists work with those original items, to preserve and describe them so that people can access them. For example, if my institution held the papers of Ida Lupino, we would write a finding aid describing what all was in there so that researchers could find the information they are looking for. It might be anything from annotated scripts and rough drafts to correspondence, contracts, or even family photos and scrapbooks. As an archivist at an entertainment company, I catalog digitized blueprints for sets, costumes, props, and business papers from establishing the company."

From Jacqueline Devereaux:

• “I'm an archivist at a university archives — but instead of checking out books, I keep unique and one-of-a-kind letters, photographs, and even digital files like emails for future generations. It's a little like a museum: we collect and organize records of the human experience, making them accessible for researchers, students, and the public. I love this work because I get to handle everything from early book drafts of famous authors to behind-the-scenes photos of icons like Dolly Parton — and I get to bring these stories to life for K–12 students or others”

From Marissa Friedman: 

• “As an archival/special collections librarian working in state government, I serve both government workers and the general public. As a research and special collections library, we collect and preserve materials documenting all aspects of our state’s history. As many of these items are rare, unique, and/or fragile, the majority of our collections can't be checked out of the library, but if you visit in person or explore the online catalog you'll find photographs, pamphlets and flyers, books, diaries and letters, business records, objects like buttons, and so much more. My job is to increase access to these diverse materials and support the research needs of any patron with a research question related to our state's history. I do this by answering reference questions, describing our collections for researchers to help them find useful materials, digitizing materials for remote research, and participating in public events and building exhibits highlighting our amazing materials. I love this work because every day I get to learn something new and connect people with the information they need."

The two attachments are from the Committee on Public Awareness. They provide templates to construct an elevator speech.

For other resources, 

The American Library Association's website has a section on crafting an elevator speech

The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois has a section focused on preservation elevator speeches

In 2013, the section members shared these examples of elevator speeches.  

A is for Archives and Advocacy by Justine Rothbart

Justine Rothbart's blog post detailing her experience at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, 2013.

From the Business Archives Section (BAS)- Business Archives Colloquium, Wednesday, August 14, 2013 by Aubrey Carrier

Elevator Speech:  A quick, succint summation of what you do or sell.

When someone inevitably asks, "What do you do?" don't merely give your job title.  If you take some extra time to explain your responsibilities and the values you bring to your job, you'll be able to keep the conversation going.

Follow the CRT Method:

Create

• Generate ideas about what you do.  
• What are your major job responsibilities, and how do they support your organization?  
• Think of short stories and anecdotes to illustrate and support your message.
• Use action words and descriptive language.

Rehearse

• Practice as much as possible with people you trust, and use their feedback to refine and improve your speech.
• Keep your speech fresh in your mind so you'll have it ready when you need it!

Tailor

• An "Elevator Speech" can take place anywhere!
• Create custom versions of your speech for various real-life situations (e.g. elevator ride, reception, conference, holiday party, etc.).
• Consider what kind of verbiage or anecdotes you might use in each of these situations.

From I&A Roundtable Blog Entry 6: Elevator Speech by Aliza Leventhal

As a current archives student in Boston I am constantly introducing myself in conversations starting with the question: “What do you do?” My standing response is “I’m becoming/am an archivist!” There are two clear categories of response to my declaration:

The first is: “Cool!” (Which is always appreciated).

The alternative is: “What?” which is closely followed by “Is that like a librarian?”

Originally I was offended by the misunderstanding (I’ve since come around and now fully embrace the entire information science and cultural heritage communities as part of the archival profession), and without the patience or desired vocabulary to provide a quick reply my response to the confused questioner was lamentably variation of “yes.” To move the conversation along I would use descriptions like: “an old paper librarian,” “preserving historical documents,” “making unique documents and records available,” or “facilitating research.” There are clear patterns in my stand-by synopses in the use of functions and actions.

My explanations left out specifics but offered broad strokes, and while none of the explanations I have offered so far are inclusive or entirely accurate they seemed to get across a basic understanding. I’m sure my experience and feeling of inadequate representation of archives and archivists is not unique and have been reassured as much by my cohorts at Simmons and throughout the profession.

Last spring Simmons’ Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCoSAA) addressed this concern about succinctly and effectively communicating about ourselves and the archival profession by sponsoring a competition for students to submit elevator pitches answering the question “What is an archivist?” The student body voted on the submissions and the winning pitch was: "An archivist preserves and organizes materials that uphold the memory of a person, organization or community to ensure greatest access to the information by the public."

While this description offers a starting point for the conversation, and is a vast improvement over previous explanations of an archivist’s responsibilities, it doesn’t offer the desired “zing” necessary to be a standard response. The competition had very few submissions, hinting at the larger issue that we, as a profession, have not developed the necessary skills to express the significance of our field and positions in an effective and impactful way. We are trained to be nimble professionals, who think critically and continue to learn outside the classroom, but not to “sell ourselves.”As we see funding continue to be cut and donations dwindle in hard economic times, we have been asked to adapt, take on new responsibilities, and learn new skills, particularly as new mediums enter our repositories. We have met these challenges head on and are finding ways to work with new materials within tighter quarters. The question is then: “What is stopping us?” How are we able to overcome so many obstacles and yet are unable to effectively communicate? Particularly when being able to effectively express ourselves to the broader community could potentially solve the problems of tighter quarters and other budgetary and decision making limitations.

My preliminary hypothesis is we haven’t tried very hard; communication has not been a priority. Even recognizing that this is an issue, it still isn’t at the top of my list of professional concerns, but it is rising. We, as a collective, need to push this item up on the agenda and work as a community (like we have on so many other issues), and tackle this problem. I’m sure Simmons’ elevator pitch competition isn’t the first or the last initiative, and I hope in our more collaborative community we can continue to expand beyond our immediate environments to improve our communicative skills.