Archivist/ Metadata Specialist

Description

Yale University offers exciting opportunities for achievement and growth in New Haven, Connecticut.  Conveniently located between Boston and New York, New Haven is the creative capital of Connecticut with cultural resources that include two major art museums, a critically-acclaimed repertory theater, state-of-the-art concert hall, and world-renowned schools of Architecture, Art, Drama, and Music.

Position Focus:

Under the supervision of the Head of Arrangement and Description, work with staff in MSSA and across Yale University Library to ensure metadata integrity, normalization, portability, and development of or adherence to local and national metadata best practices. Contribute to quality control of metadata operations; maintains documentation on best practices and tracks developments on standards of all types (descriptive, technical, preservation, and administrative) to recommend and design appropriate metadata schema and products for discovery and access. Follow the development of new and emerging technologies and analyze their potential application to the department and library to significantly improve and transfer information resource discovery and retrieval; and participate in departmental and library-wide technology planning and implementation activities.

Serve as primary technical lead for the department's data migration from Archivist's Toolkit to ArchivesSpace. Provide ongoing development and support of the department's use of ArchivesSpace. Collaborate across the Library on ArchivesSpace implementation and use.

Process and catalog archive and manuscript collections in all formats, including born digital, in accordance with approved plans and departmental procedures, including screening for sensitive material and implementation of necessary preservation procedures. Devise processing plans for collections requiring more than minimum processing. Prepare and update access tools such as finding aids and catalog records for archival and manuscript holdings in accordance with archival and library standards.

Participate in departmental planning; represent the department on a variety of collaborative projects and programs inside and outside the department; seek opportunities for cooperation with other departments or institutions;plan and manage specific library projects.

Assist with public services through weekly rotations on the reference desk and involvement in primary source instructions.

Undertake special projects as assigned. Plan, direct, and review the work of support staff and student assistants. Participate in departmental and library-wide planning and committee activities. Actively contribute to the archival profession.

When applying, please submit a cover letter along with your resume. Review of applications will begin immediately.

Required Education, Skills and Experience:

1. Master’s degree from an ALA-accredited library school or equivalent accredited degree, with formal training in archival theory and practice. In selected instances, a post-graduate degree in museum studies or a related discipline in the humanities or social sciences may be substituted for a master’s degree in library science.
2. Experience arranging and describing or providing public services for manuscript and/or archival collections.
3. Experience working collaboratively and independently with varied groups within a complex organization and rapidly changing, team environment.
4. Demonstrated knowledge of archival theory and practice may be substituted for formal training.
5. Demonstrated knowledge of current national data content and structure standards related to the archival control of collection materials.
6. Demonstrated knowledge of archival and library management systems.
7. Demonstrated job or school experience with basic preservation and conservation standards for archival and manuscript collections.
8. Demonstrated excellent oral, written, and interpersonal communications and analytical ability.
9. Demonstrated record of designing projects and bringing them to a conclusion in a timely fashion.
10. Strong working knowledge of EAD, HTML, XML, including experience writing and maintaining XSL style sheets; DACS and familiarity with MARC, AACR2, RDA, LCSH, LCAF, and LC cataloging standards.
11. Proven skills processing manuscript and/or archival collections.
12. Strong knowledge of American history, and/or broad knowledge in the humanities, as demonstrated through academic coursework.
13. Ability to manage a variety of tasks and multiple priorities; Logical and enthusiastic approach to work; Careful attention to detail; Initiative and follow-through.

Yale University assigns ranks to librarian positions based on a combination of professional experience and accomplishments (see range assigned to this description as noted in the posting position title). Librarian ranking information can be found at: http://www.library.yale.edu/about/departments/lhr/rank.html.

Preferred Education, Skills and Experience:

Experience with Archivists' Toolkit or ArchivesSpace; EAC, MODS, METS; Relax NG, Schematron and scripting languages; SQL, XQuery, and/or SPARQL; and Linked Data; Demonstrated ability to work with databases and manipulate and migrate data; Creative approaches to introducing or using online tools to enhance access; Experience accessioning and/or arranging and describing born-digital materials.