Project Archivist

Description

The Project Archivist for Johns Hopkins Public Health Collections is a one year project position at the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (“Medical Archives”) in Baltimore, MD. The successful candidate will demonstrate familiarity with the issues related to processing large 20th century collections in an academic archives setting, and knowledge of current descriptive standards in the library and archival professions. Position is part of a one year Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) funded project entitled “Private Practices, Public Health: Privacy-Aware Processing to Maximize Access to Health Collections.” This project is in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Commons, the Medical Heritage Library and the Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library at Harvard University. Will work with Medical Archives project staff in creating finding aids for personal paper collections of 4 individuals who were affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Will be responsible for overseeing the processing and creation of finding aids for collections totaling 171 cubic feet. Position involves archival description, supervision of processing, and creation of finding aids of public health collections. Collections document the historical evolution of public health over the course of the twentieth century.

The primary duties and responsibilities of the job: Will appraise the intellectual and cultural value of the collections, assess the risk that individual series contain protected or confidential information, and establish processing plans based on the relative value and risk associated with the individual series. The successful candidate will prepare Public Health Collection descriptions for presentation on the Medical Archives website and for use by patrons and Archives staff. Will participate in regular staff meetings to provide updates on the status of collections in process and to assist reference staff with inquiries related to those collections. Position involves creation of web-based privacy aware collection finding aids utilizing MPLP processing practices and DACS, EAD, and EAC-CPF standards within Eloquent archival management system. Processing time and labor data will be tracked using Microsoft Access-based processing Metrics Database. Will have oversight of collection processing, including supervisory role with student processing staff, authorship of higher level descriptive content, design of collection arrangement plans, and publication of finding aids. Individual will research and write biographical and administrative histories related to the Public Health Collections. Descriptive records will also include Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Library of Congress Names Authority Files (LCNAF) and local authorities. Privacy aware finding aids will adhere to compliance requirements based on HIPAA, FERPA and laws and policies related to personnel and other confidential information. In collaboration with Collections Management Archivist and legal counsel, will create processing guidelines for the security of Protect Health Information (PHI) and other confidential information. The position will involve supervision of up to 10 part time (equivalent to 3 full time) undergraduate student employees and collaboration with archivists with processing and reference expertise in personal paper collections, institutional records, image collections and material culture.