Associate Archivist [Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ]

Position Summary

The Center for Creative Photography actively collects, preserves, interprets, manages and makes available materials that are essential to understanding photography and its history. Through its archives, collections, education programs, exhibitions, and publications, the Center promotes research into and appreciation of the photographic medium while safeguarding original objects for posterity.

Reporting to the Director of the Volkerding Center for Research and Academic Programs, the Associate Archivist provides expertise to facilitate access to a wide variety of rare and unique materials. The incumbent will establish, document and maintain policies for effective and efficient organization, description, and discovery of primary resource materials; coordinate arrangement and description workflows and participate in the integration of manuscript metadata into systems for storage, search, and display. This individual will also collaborate in the design and implementation of projects, workflows, and training involving the arrangement and description of primary resource materials as well as arrange collections and create, edit, and manipulate metadata for resource description.

Outstanding University of Arizona benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance plans; life insurance and disability programs; paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays; UA/ASU/NAU tuition reduction for the employee and qualified family members; state and optional retirement plans; access to UA recreation and cultural activities; and more!

Duties & Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and expertise in the areas of cataloging and archival processing. Develop and implement user-centered transformative approaches to accessing archival collections both in-house and online.

• Establish, refine and document policies, procedures and workflows for archival processing and cataloging in accordance with national standards and best practices.

• In collaboration with the Senior Archivist, set processing and cataloging priorities and address backlogs to ensure timely access to and discoverability of the Center’s archival holdings. Develop and oversee implementation of processing plans for archival collections.

• Research and write catalog entries, finding aids, indexes, bibliographies and other tools to aid scholars in accessing archival materials; arrange, describe, re-house, catalog, and create DACS-compliant find aids for archival materials.

• Review and revise cataloging records, finding aids and other descriptive output to ensure accuracy and adherence to local and national standards.

• In collaboration with the Conservator, develop and implement archival collection preservation plans. Identify and refer items as necessary for conservation treatment.

• Maintain appropriate physical housing and storage of collections.

• Develop and maintain in-depth knowledge of changes and trends in archival arrangement, description, and access methodologies establishing baseline standards for archival description.

• Develop and maintain in-depth knowledge of current and emerging trends in cataloging rules, standards, and methodologies for archival holdings.

• Supervise staff, students, interns, and volunteers.

• Collaborate with University of Arizona Libraries technical services staff on issues regarding presentation of and access to Center collections in the Libraries online environment.

• Serves as the Center’s liaison with Arizona Archives Online.

• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• A Master’s degree in library/information science from an ALA-accredited institution.
• Certification by the Academy of Certified Archivists; OR, 3 years relevant experience in a special collection or special library.
• 3 years experience in creation of DACS compliant archival finding aids using EAD mark-up.
• 3 years experience in creation of MARC records for archival collections.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and interpersonal skills.
• Experience in training and supervising student employees.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Art History, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the literature of the history of photography.
• Experience handling rare and fragile materials.
• Experience with Gallery Systems’ TMS and eMuseum.
• Working knowledge of accepted preservation methods applied to archival collections of books, journals, manuscripts, photographic materials, and ephemera.
• Ability to work collaboratively, proactively and constructively.
• Ability to work with diverse people and to serve a diverse population.