Ever since I started my current job, I’ve been trying to think how I could improve the archivist’s role within the company. As an example, I recently took part in another project (external to archives) and it was apparently commented by one manager that the archives must not be terribly busy if I had the time to do such a good job on it. This brought things to a head, as it showed that senior management onsite had no idea what the role of the archives actually was, or what was involved in the day to day running of the service. I am also being asked more and more to complete tasks unrelated to the archives as there is no one else to do them. I feel that this adds to the confusion over what the archivist’s role actually is, and it detracts from my ability to devote time to dealing with non-urgent backlogs in the archives.
In one of my attempts to address this, I have started logging my time. This helps me to see where my time is spent on a day to day basis. For the first month I kept a detailed record of everything I did and how long it took. At the end of this month I studied the record and split the work up into 11 main categories, which I then used to create a bar chart. The spreadsheet is updated daily and the bar chart is set to update in conjunction with this so I can visually compare the amount of time I spend on different areas. I have found this a really useful exercise, not least because it allows for much more effective timekeeping! I am much more aware of where my time is going now that I can see it on a spreadsheet!
This will also be useful as after a period of a few months I will be able to create a report to show what my job actually entails and use it to make the case to my bosses that the archives has so much to do that it could actually do with employing an extra pair of hands instead of pushing the archivist to do other, unrelated, tasks. They look at the archives and see a service, they don’t realise all the work that goes on behind the scenes, and I hope this log will allow me to address this with hard facts in the future. Eventually I would like to see the archives made into their own department and this log again will help with creating job descriptions and deciding on staff numbers.
I don’t know if it will have the desired effect yet, but I will update here!
