Rogue Employers

We have received complaints from several senior former members and lapsed Registered Members of the Society of Archivists concerning job advertisements and person specifications requiring applicants for various posts to be Registered Members of the Society of Archivists.

One senior archivist who asks to remain anonymous, states such requirements are illegal.

We certainly sympathise with our colleagues and would add the related concern that members of this society are impliedly excluded from applying for such posts. This is perverse indeed, as the idea of introducing a level of registered membership in the Society of Archivists was originally partly in response to the admission of clerical officers (archives assistants) and partly in order to move towards chartered status, an object which seems to have sunk without trace, while clerical officers continue to rejoice in membership of a professional body.

We in the Society of Qualified Archivists have no need for a registration scheme as we are all qualified archivists.

In response to the concerns expressed, we have identified several rogue employers following a quick trawl of the web using Google and searching for +"registered member" +"society of archivists".

The following employers require applicants for professional archives posts to be Registered Members of the Society of Archivists:

King's College, London online advert and
again

Glasgow University online advert

London Archives Regional Council online advert

Please keep examples flowing in. Do these prospective employers realise they are excluding good potential candidates?

So much for inclusion which we hear so much about!

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