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.
Shelby White and Leon Levy, Senior 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 Senior Processing Archivist will be
responsible for surveying, arranging, rehousing, and describing archival
materials, including supporting born-digital records. They will also
identify items in the collection, of high value for digitization and
create a workflow for managing incoming institutional archival material.
This position will manage budgets, create reports, and provide feedback
about the project, as well as participate in programming and outreach
activities to promote it.
This
position and institutional archives processing project are made
possible with funding by the Leon Levy Foundation. The Shelby White and
Leon Levy Senior Processing Archivist is funded for 2 years position and
reports to the Assistant Director, Collections and Public Service.
Responsibilities
Project Management
- Collaborate with Center for Brooklyn History staff on researching the institutional archive
- Using the initial workplan as a guide, create a detailed processing plan and expected timeline, including milestones, and expected outcomes
- Manage and support the project archivist on a day to day basis
- Manage related budgets, including for archival supplies and other expenses
- Create a robust work plan for the processing of institutional materials relating to Brooklyn Public Library for future additions to the collection.
- Generate reports and provide updates to the Leon Levy Foundation
Arrangement and Description
- Survey, process, rehouse, arrange, and describe the institutional archival collections using ArchivesSpace, in line with current archival standards and practices
- Conduct item-level cataloging
- Create processing plans and workflows for the material, including digitized and born digital assets.
- Identify items in the collection that are candidates for digitization and/or conservation
- Create finding aids with appropriate levels of description, arrange and compose biographical and historical notes
Outreach
- Lead and participate in programming and outreach initiatives about the project.
- Create 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
- 4-5 years archival arrangement and description experience
- Demonstrated consistent accuracy and attention to detail
- Demonstrated knowledge of current developments in the principles of archival arrangement and description for personal papers and organizational records
- Processing experience with handwritten materials
- Familiarity with the application of current standards for manuscript and archival description such as DACS
- Familiarity with EAD, XML and other machine actionable metadata schema
- Demonstrated ability to organize and prioritize work, with strong project management skills. Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a team setting .
- 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.
- Excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills, including demonstrated ability to communicate with a diverse community
- Ability to work as both independently and collaboratively
- Strong organization and time-management skills; attention to accuracy and detail is essential
Physical Demands
- Lifting of boxes up to 50 lbs.
