Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), Laboratoire de Recherche en Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication (EBAD, ETHOS - Université Cheikh Anta Diop), Dakar, Senegal
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are profoundly transforming contemporary archival science. Thus, archives, libraries, documentation services and documentary information science actors come up against several dilemmas/technological obstacles such as the management of the hardware and software infrastructure of the services, obsolescence and the fragility of the supports, the volumetric growth of the supports to name but a few. Faced with these obstacles, the traditional skills of the specialist in documentary information are called into question and his career takes shape in an uncertain way. An updating of the profiles of the skills of actors in the management of documentary information is unprecedented. This leads to the review of university and professional training programs followed by themes in capacity building and knowledge management. Archival sciences, librarianship and documentary engineering are at the heart of the dematerialization carried by several more or less related disciplines, and which are the subject of the additional skills that documentary information specialists are supposed to provide. Our article will reveal this aspect of interdisciplinarity which represents a weapon to defy the digital locks/handcuffs that arise for actors in the archiving, librarianship, and documentation professions. The article conducted by surveys and interviews allows us to constitute an up-to-date profile of the skills necessary for the management of information on several counts. We also look at the key skills and qualities documentary information professionals must possess to succeed in today’s digital environment.