‘I’m not a very good visionary’: challenge and change in twenty-first century North American archival education

Abstract

Since the founding of the National Archives (1934) and the Society of American Archivists (1936), archival scholars, educators, and practitioners have discussed and debated the challenges of and future directions for graduate archival education. This exploratory qualitative case study uses semistructured interviews with 33 tenure-track and tenured faculty members from North American graduate archival programs to explore the most pressing issues facing archival education in the twenty-first century. Showing both continuity and change, findings extend and enrich the literature regarding faculty, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, DEI, technology, and sustainability.