Digital Archivist

We are seeking a Digital Archivist (Librarian III) which is a newly created position to manage all digital assets of the Chesney Archives and to launch a digital preservation program for the Chesney Archives. Primary responsibilities are to collect and preserve records created by, and documentation related to, Johns Hopkins medicine, nursing, and public health in digital formats; and to collaborate with archives staff to make the documentation available for research and reference.

The Digital Archivist is to oversee administration and preservation of born-digital and digitized collection assets. Legal regulations, in particular HIPAA and FERPA, apply to all aspects of work performed by the Digital Archivist and Chesney Archives staff. Other responsibilities include support of initiatives to advance collection management and goals for access and use of digital collections of the Chesney Archives. The Digital Archivist will report to Collections Management Archivist for Digital and Audio-visual Materials.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities:

Management & Preservation of Born-digital Collection Formats - 30%

• Applies professional digital curation practices and national and international standards for existing and ongoing acquisition of born-digital collection holdings with a focus on long-term preservation and access.
• Establishes guidelines and workflows in collaboration with archives staff for accessioning, arrangement, description, access, and preservation of digital records, including but not limited to still and moving images; textual materials; sound recordings; data sets; email; and institutional websites.
• Accessions born-digital records and performs digital preservation tasks to ensure their integrity and long-term preservation.
• Assesses content on obsolete formats and legacy digital media and migrates data when necessary.

Collection Development for Born-digital Assets - 20%

• Maintains contacts with academic, administrative, and clinical departments at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health to keep abreast of digital records creation and schedule regular transfer of digital records. Collaborates with archives staff to appraise digital records of long-term value.

Management of Digital Assets Created by Digital Reformatting - 20%

• Primary responsibility for the stewardship of digital assets produced through digital reformatting of analog collections of the Chesney Archives.
• Prepares guidelines and establishes procedures for digitization projects, in collaboration with Collections Management Archivist for Digital and Audio-visual Materials, involving diverse collection materials and formats (manuscript documents, photographs, bound volumes, oversize, sound recordings, video recordings).
• Establishes quality control practices for internal and outsourced digitization projects in collaboration with Collections Management Archivist for Digital and Audio-visual Materials.

Technical Support for Digital Preservation Systems - 20%

• Provides technical support for digital preservation systems.
• Oversees management, preservation, and access of both digitized and born-digital assets.
• Prepares data crosswalks to existing or new systems, in particular with databases and technologies supported by Johns Hopkins Medicine and University.
• Oversees selection of equipment and software used in digital preservation.
• Plans sufficient file storage, digital preservation actions, and ensures that metadata requirements are in place.
• Manages descriptive, technical, rights, structural, and administrative metadata and the ingestion of assets and metadata into a digital asset management system to be launched for the Chesney Archives.
• Tracks and reports on digitization projects as required by Johns Hopkins leadership and grant providers.

Primary Contact for Digital Asset Issues, Reporting & Technologies - 10%

• Provides support to reference, curatorial, processing, and other staff related to the acquisition, use, rights, online presentation, and long-term preservation of digital collection assets.
• Manages statistical reporting, keeps abreast of emerging technologies, and monitors rapidly changing standards and practices for digital content creation and management.
• Maintains documentation on guidelines and procedures, and provides training when necessary.
• Serves as consultant for multiple, often simultaneous, grant- and deadline-driven workflows for large-scale digitization.

Supervisory Controls:

• Works under broad administrative and general supervision of the Collections Management Archivist for Digital and Audio-Visual Materials and has responsibility to assist with, manage, and carry out assigned studies, projects, or other work independently.
• Completed work, decisions, and recommendations are reviewed with respect to the fulfillment of Chesney Archives’ digital records program objectives and responsiveness to needs of the Chesney Archives.

Complexity:

• This work is in a field of rapidly evolving and interconnected technologies in systems development.
• The Digital Archivist must stay abreast of technological advances, standards, and requirements, and use judgment in assessing whether and when new technologies should be incorporated to support Chesney Archives’ digital records program.
• The work of the Digital Archivist necessitates awareness of legal regulations that apply to the collection of the Chesney Archives and occasional consultation with archives staff and Johns Hopkins legal counsel.
• Generally, the work demands that consistency and standards be defined across all collections, and that diverse data be integrated and seamlessly presented internally and to the public.

Scope & Effect:

• The Digital Archivist plays a key role in helping to ensure that digital assets representing the unique resources of the Chesney Archives are secure yet accessible, where they increasingly form the core component of dissemination of collections, research, and educational information data and online resources, including integration with other networked systems of Johns Hopkins and the wider community.
• The Digital Archivist monitors, coordinates, and implements policies and procedures, and maintain systems supporting a wide range of digital curation and stewardship.

Personal Contacts/Purpose of Contacts:

• Contacts are primarily with members of the Chesney Archives staff, volunteers, student employees and staff of other Johns Hopkins offices as well as technology vendors, contractors, and external developers.
• The purpose of the contacts is to expand the Chesney Archives’ collecting scope to strategically identify and collect born-digital records of long-term value as they are being created by individuals and departments; and to assist with creation, access, and use of digital records.

Work Environment:

• Rules and regulations for faculty and staff of the health divisions of Johns Hopkins apply to Digital Archivist.

Minimum Qualifications (Mandatory):

• MLIS from an ALA-accredited institution or an advanced related degree.
• 3 years professional library experience.

* Applicants who do not meet the posted requirements but are completing their final academic semester/quarter will be considered eligible for employment and may be asked to provide additional information confirming their academic completion date.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MLIS Degree with a concentration in Archives.
• Experience in an archives or special collections department in a research library or similar setting.
• Experience managing a web archiving program, including creating and monitoring web crawls, performing quality control checks and supervising others in quality control checks, and creating descriptive metadata for web content that accords with professional standards.
• Familiarity with an archival collection management database, such as Archivists’ Toolkit, ArchivesSpace, Archon, or Eloquent WebGenCat.
• Demonstrated experience in RFP and vendor selection processes.

Special Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with outside partners and internal stake holders.
• Ability and desire to represent Chesney Archives at associated conferences and national meetings.
• Knowledge of key operations for born-digital archives, including appraisal and selection; accessioning; preservation; and access.
• Knowledge of standards, best practices, and principles in the fields of digital technologies, digital asset management, digital curation, digital forensics, metadata standards, information architecture, as well as the ability and desire to continue cultivating his or her expertise in these areas.
• Skill in managing cultural heritage digital assets using an industry-standards based digital asset management system.
• Ability to analyze born-digital content for the presence of personally identifiable information and other confidential and sensitive information; and design controls to redact or otherwise restrict access to this information for public accessibility or internal use.
• Ability to transfer born-digital materials into the archives using format, carrier, and content-appropriate methods, including disk imaging legacy physical media, utilizing networked transfer methods (file shares, cloud services, SSH, FTP, APIs, etc.), crawling web sites, and other methods.
• Knowledge of tools and software used to capture, manage, and deliver born-digital records, and ability to explore and assess

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