Wednesday 28 October 2009

Results of Career Survey


Are you interested in how your career progression and salary banding compares with others in the record-keeping profession?

A survey undertaken earlier this year in relation to the profile of the record-keeping profession in Scotland, identified differences between the salary levels and experience of archivists and record managers. Records management roles typically required more on the job experience and commanded a higher salary, whereas archives roles were more often filled by staff earning in the lowest pay scale.

The variations of salary scales in the local authority, higher education and business sectors showed that roles in universities and businesses were generally better paid than those in local authorities. There was not enough data from the survey to allow for meaningful analysis of pay banding and experience levels within the sectors.

The questionnaire addressed job vacancies advertised in the last 12 months, finding that these were evenly split between those which required a professional qualification in archives and records management and those that did not.

Read the report or download it here
Susan Fisher
SoAS Careers Officer

Thursday 1 October 2009

Society of Archivists (Scotland) Regional Meeting, September 2009

The recent Society of Archivists Regional Meeting in the Borders looked at how archivists can use the new technology of Web 2.0 and blogs. For those of us at conference this followed on nicely from some of the talks there.

Kiara King from Glasgow University Archives gave us an overview of the tools that are available and an overview of two of the blogs she is involved in the Ballast Trust Blog and the GUAS Business Archives Blog. Kiara’s excellent presentation can be found here.

I spoke about our own work at the Scottish Borders Archive turning Victorian family diaries into daily blogs. The diary of Sir George Henry Scott Douglas has been available since April. It follows him on his Mediterranean voyage where he encounters pirates and as a tourist tries a new food, the kebab! His sister Charlotte’s diaries are publishing in weekly installments which give an insight into her love life and the mystery of her ‘dreadful secret’!

One thing that we all took away from the meeting is that Web 2.0 is a useful tool and there are many different ways to employ these technologies. If you want to see examples of how other archives are doing this take a look here.

Juline Baird
Assistant Archivist
Scottish Borders Council