Digital Curatorial Assistant

Description

The New York Public Library seeks an extremely organized, detail-oriented person to serve as the Library’s Digital Curatorial Assistant.   The successful candidate will work closely with the Library’s curators, permissions office, attorneys, and collections strategy department to: (i) assist the Library in its efforts to make its myriad collections more broadly available to researchers and to the public and (ii) work with rights holders to obtain permission to place in-copyright items on NYPL’s website.

Other responsibilities will include:

• Working closely with the diverse items in the Library’s collections (including photos, books, manuscripts, recordings, and videos) in connection with the Library’s efforts to digitize and make its holdings available to the widest possible audience on its website and on third party websites.
• Negotiating and securing releases from third parties to use materials in NYPL’s online exhibits.
• Working closely with the metadata coordinator to enter metadata for items in NYPL’s in-house metadata system.
• Transcribing and encoding in XML short documents from NYPL’s archival collections
• Preparing items for shipment to the Digital Imaging Unit, and refiling items after they’ve been digitized.
• Other duties as required

Qualifications:

• BA/BS required, (JD, MLS or another Master’s Degree preferred)
• Extremely organized, detail-oriented, meticulous, analytical individual
• Willingness to be proactive and to solve problems independently
• Facility with entering information into databases
• Ability to work independently on large, complex projects
• Excellent research and writing skills
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to organize large bodies of information effectively and to distinguish relevant from irrelevant issues
• Good judgment and problem solving skills
• Knowledge of copyright law.
• Commitment to the Library’s programs and mission
• Knowledge of XML standards used by Digital Humanities/Digital Libraries projects (TEI/EAD) preferred
• Experience clearing rights for digital projects preferred
• Knowledge of 20th century Performing Arts History preferred