Nolda Romer-Kenepa opened the meeting. She expressed her satisfaction with CITRA 2009. She said in particular that the new format of parallel and plenary sessions had worked very well. She said that she realized that this had required much organization and preparation but that the output had been tremendous. She would therefore like to continue with this format for next year’s CITRA in Oslo. Furthermore she said that she would like CITRA to be more open to allow others- for example young professionals- to participate in the conference. Nolda also said that she was happy with the conclusions presented at the closing session yesterday afternoon of the CITRA professional programme. She expressed her hope that the follow up on the conclusions and recommendations will be practical and solutions driven.

In 2011 the CITRA will be hosted by Spain, and will take place in Toledo.

PCOM and CITRA members discussed the professional program for 2010. The theme of the next CITRA will explore digital records, access and trust.

Lew Bellardo and Nolda Romer-Kenepa felt that the involvement of the young professionals in CITRA 2009 had been a success and expressed the need to involve young professionals in Oslo.

Did CITRA 2009 meet your expectations?

Yes! My expectations have been met in many different areas. I have been very impressed with the level of quality of the plenary and parallel sessions. I got a lot of positive feedback on the content of the professional program. The sessions were full and even the good weather did not keep the participants from attending the sessions. I am also very pleased with the discussions and interactions after the sessions and during the break.

The organization went very smoothly and I am very grateful for all the hard work that everyone involved in the preparation has put into making CITRA 2009 a success!

We had hoped for 200 participants and we were a bit worried about the target because of the financial difficulties that some organizations face which might prevent them from traveling to conferences. I am therefore very pleased that we had 250 participants.

The presence of so many archival professionals in Malta gives a positive impulse to the archival profession in Malta. It is an investment in the archival profession in Malta! It has changed the perception that politicians have on the profession.

And last but not least the CITRA will give Malta worldwide publicity.

All in all it was a very positive and rewarding experience on all levels: logistical, academic and social.

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.

“Train the trainers in Records Management” is a project launched by EURBICA and developed by ICA. It uses the “Train the trainers” resources pack and the Moodle platform, a free web application to create effective online learning sites.

It aims to provide a handbook for creating training curriculum that would help trainers identify needs, develop a program, deliver lessons, assess results and adapt subsequent programs.

The point of the program is to be practical and efficient: to start from the learner’s perspective, using a problem solving approach based on case studies. The platform brings together existing resources: standards, the IRMT method for “How to write a case study,” existing case studies, etc.

So where does the project stand? The project is advancing well and the resource pack has been used in interesting ways, for example in Netherlands National Archives. The handbook has yet to be finalized, and when it is, it will be made accessible on-line at the ICA web site. The next step will be to use the methodology to develop resources for other archival themes where training is needed.

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.

Can you introduce your organization ?
The Friends of the National Archives of Malta is a voluntary, non-governmental organization, created in 2000. Our aim is to support the National Archives and to raise public awareness of the importance of preserving documents.

What does your organization do?
The support we can give to the National Archives falls into two categories

• We organize events and use our contacts with private companies to raise funds.  This helps to fund preservation, digitization, and so on.
• We also give a very practical help by contributing to cataloging projects, proof reading, or this year, by helping in the CITRA organization.

It’s a really original way of interacting with the Archives
Yes, we weren’t fully aware of how original we are until now. I’ve gone and seen the web site of the friends of the UK National Archives and it’s difficult to see precisely what the practical interaction is. Here in Malta, the National Archives staff is small and there’s so much to do! Charles Farrugia can rely on us for some actions. For CITRA for example, there’s a need for staff, but at the same time, the Archives must stay open, so the volunteers are here to help. I’ve taken a week leave from my job – not in the archives field – to be here.

Who are the members ?
There are 8 members in the committee, the president being Max Farrugia, who is also a member of the National Council of Archives and has played a role in the new archives legislation. We’re a group of people from related fields, who studied archives or librarianship or History. Apart from the committee, the members are few, but we all are here to get the work done and preserve the documents and memory of Malta.

How is CITRA going for you? 
Well, it’s the first one I have attended, so I can make no comparisons, but I think it’s a great opportunity for archivists to meet and exchange ideas. For us in Malta, it’s interesting to see that the problems we thought were specific to us are in fact shared by all countries.

During the late nineties, in cooperation with ICA, IRMT developed a resources pack including courses, training materials, and a procedure manual to help building competencies in Electronic Records Management. These resources are available on line, on the IRMT web site, and can also be sent by cd with a request to the Trust.

Now focusing on Southern and Eastern Africa, the Trust seeks to develop a new approach. Its efforts aim to establish a Centre of Excellence for the Management of Electronic Records to serve regional needs. It would be a way to raise awareness, and it would help governments to build skills and knowledge.

The Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI) in Kampala, Uganda has agreed to host this Centre.  This is a great opportunity, as the Centre is owned by ten countries and will be used by others, and as it will be a reference for Sub-Saharan Africa education.

EASTARBICA is partner in the project. The Trust hopes to establish partnerships with universities and work closely with the National Archives of the countries concerned.

While they hope to provide free training to archivists in public institutions, at the moment lack of funding has kept the Centre from opening its doors.

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

What do you expect from CITRA 2009?

It is a very exciting opportunity to get a much broader voice of education and training issues. Usually education is just a stream within a bigger conference, now we actually have about 50 sessions dedicated to education and training. It gives us a chance to share diverse issues; learn about the different approaches; and addressing the issues cross boundaries.

What are your hopes for the future with regard to archival education?

I hope that the archival education continues to be relevant, adaptive and inclusive. Also that archival education continuously steps outside accepted conventions.

How do you see the role of SAE addressing the challenges of future archival education?

The SAE can identify approaches on how to address the challenges of archival education. Also through the SAE projects, i.e., research databases, on-line directory of archival schools, translation of “train the trainer” resources and the digital recordkeeping curriculum resources. It is very important for SAE to partner with SPA in these education and training endeavors. Also SAE needs to collaborate with other archival education networks and professional associations such as IFLA and records management associations.

Marian will be presenting a paper on mentoring on Thursday. It will be an exciting session whereby four presenters will look at mentoring from different perspectives and how it can be integrated into archival education.