This thesis examines contemporary professionalism among Swedish archivists and how they create a professional identity and defend their status in a context defined by societal change and a new techonological, political and organizational setting. The results are interpreted using two ideal-types drawn from sociological theory on professional change due to the emergence and incorporation of New Public Management in the public sector. The results show that Swedish archivists tend to defend a traditional role as objective and neutral keepers of truth, but also strive to redefine their professional role within organization as experts of information, leaders and managers. Furthermore, the professional status is strenghtened by defending the archive’s role in society as a memory institution for cultural identity and historical truth as well as an important asset for private enterprise and public sector.

The aim of this study is to investigate what archivists think about their representation in today´s media.  Popular Tv-shows and other kind of media are frequent users of archives and its contents. Without the archives, many popular TV-shows would not exist. Why is it that media shows a picture of the archives and archivists in a way that does not correspond reality? Through interviews with archivist and a person working with media, this study will look at what the archivist thinks about how they and their profession is represented in media and its consequences, and what medias viewpoint is. This study aims to answer 1) How is todays media depicting archives according to archivists? 2) What does the process look like when the archives collaborate with the media? 3) What is the archivist’s viewpoint on how their profession is depicted in media? 4) How does the media's image of the archives affect the daily work of the archivist? Previous research is more focused on how archivists and archives are depicted in film, this study focuses on the real archivists, their opinion and the pros and cons of medias use of archives.

Archivists have many times been compared with librarians, which is done in this master thesis. The two professions have changed in recent years. One of the reasons is digital development. The digital age has changed the way people live and the need of information, but also processes within organisational structures. In order to be able to provide relevant and efficient services, the archives and libraries have strived for new skills that are useful in the digital environment. Therefore, the need of competence has increased. There are different types of knowledge required of archivists and librarians, but both have their theoretical knowledge from information science. Through digital development, similar interests can be developed that can be a good reason for collaboration between the two professions. The purpose of the study is to see how the two professions have changed as a result of the digitalisation. Literature studies provide a long-term perspective, which provides an opportunity to see how well something has been discussed and relevant to research that has been conducted. Therefore, the study uses this approach. Literature that has been searched for was limited between the years 2000 to 2020. Assessment of the relevance of literature is done by reading through the abstract and title from searches results in databases. The study collects a total of 40 literature for analysis. Theory of profession is used as a tool to analyse the result. In archival research and information science, digital curation has emerged. The concept is about the availability and usability of data in a long-term perspective. There is a connection to the concept for both archivists and librarians. Digital data needs to be planned and managed at an early stage, to ensure the life cycle of records. Leadership in archives and libraries is something that has developed more, because project management has become important for developing services and the profession. This may be due to threats about the relevance of the professions, but it can also be about being able to develop better services, strategy and different standards, which are more adapted to the digital possibilities. Collaboration between archivists and librarians can be useful in projects where the focus is on developing data management and services, also for promoting research and accessibility and in terms of assisting researchers in their research with information retrieval. Further studies can focus more deeply on areas of expertise that are being developed, which are relevant for both archivists and librarians.

The student club archives in Uppsala are interesting because they occupy somewhat of a special position as a community archive. Their archives occupy a unique position from a professional point of view, as they usually are handled by students who lack archival education or even some general knowledge of archives. The situation for the student club archivist is special because it can be people without prior knowledge who will take care of the archives. When these people take on the role of an archivist, they shadow the professional archivist role when they have to manage an archive at their office similar to a professional archivist. There is also a problem about how to define the word archivist. There is a large gap in the definition of an archivist since both a professional and a hobbyist can consider themselves as an archivist. But where does the boundary between a hobby archivist and a professional archivist part? This aspect contributes to the possibility of a student club archivist to identify as an archivist even though they have a voluntary based position. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the archivists at the student club identify with their position, if they identify themselves as archivist, what the learning of the so-called professional identity looks like and examine the problems that can arise with regard to the archives being conducted on a voluntary basis. Hopefully, this study can contribute to a greater understanding of how the professional identity of the archivist position in non-profit community archives can be manifested in the non-professional person, and how it extends the aspect of identity formation and community that community archives are often associated with when it comes to research on community archives. This is a two years master's thesis in archival science