Curator

Description

The University of South Carolina Libraries seeks applications and nominations for an innovative, collaborative, and service-oriented professional to serve as Curator in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Reporting to the Director of the Irvin Department, the Curator will teach two courses in both the Fall and Spring semesters in the College of Arts and Sciences using materials from the Department’s collection of natural history, maps, and historical engravings.  In addition, the Curator will work with faculty in the Arts and Sciences to promote the incorporation of the Irvin Department’s collections into the curriculum.

Duties:

• Teaches two courses in both the Fall and Spring semesters using Irvin Department materials, in particular natural history engravings and prints, as well as maps and historical engravings.
• Promotes the use of Irvin Department Collections among the teaching faculty.
• Encourages partnerships across the University Libraries and campus community.
• Represents the Irvin Department and University Libraries in the academic community; with donors, collectors, and the general public.
• Engages in collection development for the natural history and maps collections.
• Successful candidates will bring to this position a record of teaching with special collections materials.

Required Qualifications:

• A Ph.D. in art history, English, history or another academic discipline in the Arts and Sciences.
• Experience using special collections materials in teaching.
• A record of using special collections materials in research.
• Sound knowledge of the issues relating to primary research materials by historians, humanities scholars, and social scientists for research, teaching, and publication.
• A demonstrated commitment to working collaboratively with diverse groups of students, scholars, and artists.
• SLED background check and credit check are required.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience developing coursework integrating special collections materials, especially natural history engravings into the curriculum.
• Experience in the creation of digital library projects, digital learning objects, or other digital humanities research projects.
• Record of continuing contributions to the literature.

The University of South Carolina, founded in 1801, enrolls approximately 23,300 undergraduate students and 6,400 graduate students on the Columbia campus. The University Libraries contains more than 3.5 million volumes, 1 million manuscripts, 325,000 maps, and 944,000 government documents and houses the University’s special collections. The University Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, LYRASIS, OCLC, and the Center for Research Libraries.

The Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is housed in the newly-built Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, a LEED Gold certified facility. The department is responsible for the care of more than 150,000 volumes and attendant archival collections, from its core collection of the antebellum South Carolina College Library to major research collections in: Natural History, Darwin, nineteenth century American Literature (Emerson, Whitman, Margaret Fuller and Transcendentalism), World War I, children’s literature, astronomy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.

Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. This is a full-time, 12-month, unclassified, tenure-track, faculty status position with the rank of Librarian. Benefits include medical, dental, state retirement or optional retirement plan.

Applicants must complete an Academic Personal Information form online at https://uscjobs.sc.edu (search by Requisition 006200). Applicants must submit a single electronic file (pdf or Word) as an e-mail attachment to artjobs@mailbox.sc.edu. This file must include a letter of application, a CV that includes a list of courses taught and names and contact information of three professional references, including at least one who can comment on teaching, a teaching statement, and up to ten images from the applicant’s portfolio, if applicable.

The search committee will begin reviewing applications on June 12, 2013 and will continue until the position is filled.