The Center for Brooklyn History is hiring two archivists to process and make accessible the institutional records of the Brooklyn Historical Society. The positions are two-year grant-funded roles that will be working together as Senior Processing Archivist and Processing Archivist.
Overview
Drawing
on its unique collection of physical and digital primary source
materials and artifacts, the Center for Brooklyn History inspires
discovery, advances research, and preserves the history and cultural
heritage of Brooklyn’s diverse communities. With generous funding from
the Leon Levy Foundation, Center for Brooklyn History (CBH) is embarking
on a two year project to process and make accessible all institutional
records of the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), which was founded in
1863 and merged with Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) in October 2020. This
institutional archive documents the founding and functioning of a
significant institution to Brooklyn, and at present are completely
unavailable to researchers. The papers, which comprise over ten percent
of CBH’s manuscript collections, provide unprecedented detail in a
growing city, and more broadly, on the way that history and knowledge
were preserved and interpreted over a century and a half. The processing
of the institutional archive, at a moment of unprecedented change, will
transform CBH’s understanding of its own genesis and development, and
will inform wide-ranging fields of scholarship on urban history, the
history of Brooklyn and New York City, museum studies, social history,
and class formation, and much more.
The Shelby White and Leon Levy Processing Archivist will
support the work of the senior processing archivist. They will assist
with the surveying, arranging, and describing archival materials from
the institutional archives, including supporting born-digital records.
They will conduct research into the collections and assist with creating
reports and the drafting of a workflow for managing the future
institutional archive material. They will also provide general support
to the processing project and participate in programming and outreach
activities to promote the project.
This
position and institutional archives processing project are made
possible with funding by the Leon Levy Foundation. The Shelby White and
Leon Levy Processing Archivist position is funded for 2 years and
reports to the Assistant Director, Collections and Public Service.
Responsibilities
Arrangement and Description
- Assist with surveying, processing, rehousing, arranging and description of the institutional archival collections using ArchivesSpace
- Assist with the item level cataloging of the collection
- Assist with identifying items in the collection that are candidates for digitization and/or conservation
- Perform background research about the institutions
- Process materials in the collection in line with current archival standards and practices
- Create finding aids with appropriate levels of description, arrange and compose biographical and historical notes
Outreach
- Participate in programming and outreach initiatives about the project.
- Assist with creating content for social media and blog posts about the institutional archives and the project.
- Represent the Center for Brooklyn History and the project, in professional regional and national organizations
Qualifications
Education and/or Certification
- Master’s degree in library and Information Science with a concentration in archives or an archives certificate.
Skills & Abilities
- 2-3 years archival arrangement and description experience
- Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills, including demonstrated ability to communicate with a diverse community
- Ability to work both independently and collaboratively
- Strong organization and time-management skills; attention to accuracy and detail is essential
- Ability to work reflectively, conscientiously, and inclusively with a team
- Archival processing experience with collections varying in size and formats including manuscripts, records series, photographs, born digital material, audiovisual, and other materials.
- Experience using collection management tools such as ArchivesSpace.
Physical Demands
- Lifting of boxes up to 50 lbs.
