Introduction

Welcome to the accidental archivist. I have had a personal blog for years, but this will be my first foray into professional pseudonymous blogging. Why the accidental archivist? Well, like many in the profession, archival work was not my first career plan. However, I worked at an archives during my undergrad years and generally found it interesting work and thus am giving a try. As I am aiming to keep this relatively pseudonymous, I will provide only a few broad facts about myself.

So, who is the Accidental Archivist? These are the tales of a young man just starting out in life. I am presently finishing a MA in history and will start my third (and perhaps final) degree in the fall in Archival studies. In terms of archival work, I have worked at two archives. The first was Small Educational Archive (SEA) and the second, Small Religious Archive (SRA). Both of these shared some characteristics such as both being located in the basements of buildings (oh, to work in a non-basement archive!), having a small staff (less than five, including yours truly) and paying moderate wages.

I'm also Canadian, should any one be curious. I'm certainly quite interested in working at British archives (and should a US archives from somewhere in the northeast offer me employment, I should be quite tempted), and am generally interested in keeping up with archival events from all over. Despite my broad aspirations, all my archival experience (and education...) has been Canadian so that is the context that I write from.

In terms of what I will be blogging about, there are a number of possibilities. I will discuss archival concerns arising from work, archives items in the news and anything else of interest that occurs to me. I certainly invite readers leave comments and get interesting discussions going. Also feel free to send in links - I certainly miss things. Beyond the Canadian media, I usually rely on the New York Times and the BBC for my international news