This year marked a change in CITRA with the introduction of parallel sessions, which was found to be successful and will be continued at the next CITRA meeting in Oslo.

The following themes were compiled by the CITRA working group from feedback given by each session chair.  These are the conclusions from the professional program of CITRA 2009:

1. The CITRA participants are enthusiastic about international and regional collaboration on training and education development. Speakers and participants mentioned the following areas of potential collaboration:
   • Internships and exchanges
   • Shared on-line resources
   • Mentoring programmes
   • Collaborative research
2. Recruiting staff from under-represented communities and backgrounds is becoming more challenging as the entry level qualifications become more exacting, therefore there should be more flexibility in the options for entering the profession.
3. Distance learning, which is of good quality and co-exists with more traditional learning models, offers great opportunities to developing countries as well as to individuals.
4. There are enormous challenges facing 21^st century educators and trainers, for example the need to equip students to:
   • cope with the fast pace of change in the general working environment as well as in the technology we all use as tools in our work
   • operate in a digital environment, managing electronic records at the same time as maintaining the historical perspective
   • understand business processes
   • develop the interpersonal skills necessary to advocate and promote their programmes and work
   • play a role in capturing oral traditions
   • and to manage their own professional development as educators, particularly in using digital tools for their teaching.
5. There is a clearly discernable feedback cycle of educators, professional associations and employers/organisations which operates through formal accreditation processes or more informal networks and impacts both initial education and continuing training and professional development. The cycle results in the constant review and update of the education and training curricula.
6. The inter-relationship between research and teaching programmes is vital in sustaining recordkeeping education in university environments. It is also necessary for archives to foster research and development projects, making use of any partnership opportunities (with universities and/or industry)

Stay tuned to the ICA website for a further conclusions and recommendations from CITRA 2009.

These new demands include being present at the beginning of the information lifecycle, assessing the authenticity of information and monitoring it over time, identifying records for preservation, developing preservation standards, understanding intellectual property issues and developing appropriate policies, in addition to performing description, access and dissemination functions.  She also emphasized the importance of research and development divisions in institutions.

Most graduates of North American archival programs today will not get jobs as a typical archivist, Prof. Duranti explained.  More and more employers are calling for professionals qualified to work in specialized domains like medical and financial recordkeeping, digital preservation, etc. The extreme archivist therefore must have a solid grounding in archival principles, but should also be given the opportunity to specialize in order to respond to this growing demand.

I spoke with Prof. Duranti afterwards to follow up on her ideas for the extreme archivist entering the workforce today.

What is the demand for the extreme archivist?

There is an enormous demand, it’s unbelievable!  Looking at job postings today it’s amazing how specific they are.  For example, one posting from the World Bank asked that the applicant have taken courses in financial records, so we added one to our program.

How can a program respond to the needs both for specialization and flexibility, given that professionals today will likely have more than 10 jobs in a career?

Flexibility and specialization aren’t incompatible.  The model of the University of British Columbia allows for this by combining core requirements, electives, and a specialization.  It also gives students the possibility to pursue a dual degree.

You spoke about the importance of communicating with fields outside archives, and mentioned that archivists should raise awareness for their profession by writing in the journals of other professions.  What are some other ways we might do so?

It’s important to get students involved in research, to attend and present at conferences and to hold trans-disciplinary colloquia, as the Association of Canadian Archivists Student Chapter at UBC has done.  The key is research that spans fields.

Entry gate into Medina

Palace of Manuel de Vilhena, now the National Museum of Natural History

Citra participants in the streets of Mdina

Examining legal documents at the National Archives

The cathedral of Mdina, designed by Lorenzo Gaffa was completed in 1700

the Greek plaza

The reading room at the National Archives, Rabat

Passport applications

Reception hosted by the Friends of the National Archives, Santo Spirito, Rabat