Reference, Access, Outreach Skills and Behaviors Frontline Report

The report compiles the results of a summer 2010 survey that attempted to categorize and characterize the different skills and competencies involved with reference, access, and outreach work in the archival setting. The survey was directed at archival professionals in a range of institutions and used a set of free-form questions to elicit responses. The results of this endeavor reveal how practicing professionals define reference, access, and outreach work, as well as the skills, traits, and institutional supports that contribute to success as archivists with reference, access, or outreach responsibilities. Reference, access, and outreach work share similarities across definitive boundaries, but they sometimes do require different skill sets; of the three, outreach work is the component that receives the least institutional backing. As a result, outreach is the aspect of archival work that poses the most challenges to allocate the time and resources needed to perform this duty successfully. Survey results also suggested that reference and access are typically viewed as primary and interrelated functions and thus, are perceived to be among one’s core duties. With the results of the survey, we as archivists can take measures to develop a more fully rounded skill set, and have a collected body of established practice that can be used to train new archivists more effectively. The research also suggests that adopting a flexible approach for determining and setting standards that is tied closely to frontline practitioners’ experiences offers a valuable complement to more traditional cannon-derived standards documents.

Additional documents:

Core Skills Survey Instrument

Survey Data Response Codes

Frontline Quality Data

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