Digital Archivist

The Digital Archivist will play a key role in supporting the discovery and access of HILA’s born-digital archival collections by carrying out workflows for the processing, preservation, and dissemination of digital assets which exist in a broad range of languages, content types, and file formats.

Reporting to the Head of Description and situated within HILA’s Description department, the Digital Archivist will assist in planning, coordinating, and troubleshooting born-digital collecting and processing tasks and projects, liaising with colleagues both across Library & Archives’ departments and within the Hoover Institution. They will appraise, process, prepare and ingest files for permanent preservation and online access, and support efficient workflows for metadata creation and enhancement.

Candidates should demonstrate experience in a broad range of born-digital processing tasks, knowledge of archival principles and practices, and familiarity with digital asset preservation solutions. To succeed in this role, candidates should have effective interpersonal and communication skills, an appreciation of diverse historical stakeholder perspectives, and make independent decisions that align with the institutional goals set by the Director of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives and established Description unit priorities.  

CORE DUTIES*:

• Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to maintain the flow of born-digital collection materials throughout accessioning and processing workflows and project lifecycles, under the guidance of the Head of Description.
• Implement and execute plans to appraise, process, describe, preserve, and provide access to born-digital collection materials under OAIS-compliant workflows, coordinating with other units as appropriate.
• Assist in determining policies and procedures for the curation of born-digital collection materials according to professional standards and scalable and sustainable methods; act as liaison to curatorial staff and internal content producers.
• Contribute to the ongoing development and review of technologies and their application to digital archival processing and researcher-usability.
• Assist in selecting, configuring, maintaining and troubleshooting hardware and software used for accessioning, processing, and preservation workflows.
• Support the migration and normalization of data backlogs.
• Create and maintain a variety of documentation for workflows and procedures; maintain and report workflow metrics.
• Identify and collaborate with partners within the Library & Archives, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and beyond regarding education and outreach activities to promote the use of digital collections.
• Engage in regional and national communities, integrating best and emerging practices.
• May supervise other staff and student assistants.

* The job duties listed are typical examples of work performed by positions in this job classification and are not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, tasks, and responsibilities.  Specific duties and responsibilities may vary depending on department or program needs without changing the general nature and scope of the job or level of responsibility.  Employees may also perform other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

Education & Experience:

• Advanced Degree in Library Science or a relevant academic discipline with demonstrated understanding of academic libraries and a minimum three years of relevant experience in a library, archives or museum, or a combination of education and relevant experience.
• Certification in digital archives and/or relevant graduate-level born-digital processing coursework with demonstrated experience working with born-digital materials in current and non-current digital formats experience.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Excellent interpersonal skills, mature judgment, and diplomacy required to interact effectively with and provide customer service to a broad audience.
• Ability to work independently and effectively in a collaborative, fast-paced environment; ability to adapt to change, analyze and assess evolving needs, and take initiative to seek creative solutions.
• Demonstrated knowledge of digital formats, digital asset management and preservation solutions, concepts related to digital asset migration and reformatting, and metadata mapping.
• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing workflows and procedures supporting transfer, arrangement, and description of digital materials, and communicating these workflows effectively to colleagues.
• Demonstrated experience with specialized forensics tools (e.g., hardware Writeblockers, FTK Imager, utilities found in the BitCurator environment), performing fixity checks, and format validation with tools such as DROID; demonstrated awareness of privacy concerns (e.g., PII detection) for born-digital materials.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the principles of archival arrangement and description for archival materials in many formats, with a focus on born-digital materials; demonstrated knowledge of professional standards for descriptive metadata, controlled vocabularies, and linked data principles.
• Demonstrated experience of using collection management software, such as ArchiveSpace; excellent knowledge of EAD and XML.
• Substantial experience with MS Office suite applications.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize workload.

Preferred/Desired Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Experience with scripting or programming languages to automate workflows and processes.
• Experience with digital object optimization, including the generation and quality assessment of OCR, speech-to-text, and other machine-learning text recognition output.

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