From a non-titled letter from the National Archives at College Park authored by Mary E. Rephlo, Staff Development Officer about employment opportunities at NARA.
"The National Archives and Records Administration has a
recurring need for persons in the archives technician job series. The duties of archives
technicians include the following: providing reference service in response to oral or
written inquiries; performing detailed arrangement work at the individual page, document,
or filing unit level; verifying correct arrangement; detecting missing or misfiled items;
preparing detailed finding aids such as indexes and shelf lists; selecting, preparing, and
verifying records for repair; reviewing records for declassification and public access;
and performing accession and disposal tasks."
Qualifications:
Depending on the needs of the position personnel offices may use qualification standards for clerical and administrative support positions. For GS-5 positions one needs a bachelor's degree from a four year institution or three years of general experience. GS-7 positions require one year of graduate education or one year as a GS-5. The GS-9 requires a master's degree or one year as a GS-7. The GS-1421 hired in the two grade interval position, where there is some upward movement the personnel office will use the standards for administrative and management positions, which appears similar to the previously mentioned standards
.
From the Qualification Standards Operating Manual, (IV-B-203)
"Basic Requirements
Evaluation of experience: Professional experience must have been in an archival science, or in a directly related field of work such as history that involved the collection, appraisal, analysis, or synthesis of information having historical or archival values. The following are illustrative of kinds of experience that may be accepted as meeting te professional experience requirements: (1) experience as an archivist in Federal, state, church, business, or other archives, or in manuscript depositories, and (2) experience of an archival nature that involved research in archival science, or in a directly related field such as history, government, economics, political science, international relations, or international law."
From a non-titled letter from the National Archives at College Park authored by Mary E. Rephlo, Staff Development Officer about employment opportunities at NARA. And the accompanying "Archivist Career Training Program" handout.
"NARA hires a small number of qualified individuals into the archivist series each year, budget permitting, as a part of the Archivist Career Training Program."
The "Archivist Career Training Program, a professional development program for career employees in the GS-1420 archivist job series ......Individuals are hired at the GS-7 level, promoted to the GS-9 level after successfully completing one year of training, and are eligible for promotion to the GS-11 level after a second year of training."
As part of the training program there are rotations, training courses reports and panels.
To apply call the National Archives Personnel Operations Branch at St. Louis, MO (1 800 827 4898) or for information contact Professional Development and Training unit at the College Park headquarters at 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001. Yet NARA can only accept applications for the program when there is a vacancy announcement, so check with the St. Louis office for those openings or go to the NARA employment website at http://www.nara.gov/nara/employ.html. As of 1999, I have heard that the program has been placed on hold. This is not an official statement, but from what I have heard from people working at the Archives and observation concerning job announcements.
You can find the Office of Personnel Management's descriptions of Archivists and Archives Technicians/Specialists at http://www.opm.gov/hr/fedclass/gs1420.pdf or http://www.opm.gov/hr/fedclass/gs1421.pdf
Last edited 01/18/00