Digital Archivist
Cambridge, MA
Full Time
Experienced
About Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery is a vibrant cultural landscape that combines the beauty of nature and art with commemoration and remembrance. Founded in 1831, Mount Auburn represents a major turning point in nineteenth-century attitudes about death, burial, and commemoration, and was imitated widely across the United States. As a designed landscape of beauty and inspiration, Mount Auburn continues to serve the public as an active cemetery, important birding site, tourist destination, and beloved community resource. More than 100,000 individuals are remembered here including Harriet Jacobs, Winslow Homer, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Julia Ward Howe. As a National Historic Landmark, we welcome more than 250,000 visitors a year to our horticultural landscape, accredited arboretum, wildlife oasis, and outdoor museum of commemorative art. Located in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts outside of Boston, Mount Auburn is a green space of 175 acres that provides welcome respite and refuge in an urban environment.
About the Historical Collections & Archives of Mount Auburn Cemetery
The Historical Collections & Archives Department documents the history and context of Mount Auburn Cemetery since its founding in 1831. Holdings, which include 3,500 linear feet of archives, library, objects, photographs, fine and decorative arts, maps and plans, and ephemera, provide evidence of Mount Auburn’s role as an active cemetery and crematory, significant cultural institution and designed landscape, and commemorative sculpture garden and tourist destination. Cemetery publications can be found on archive.org. Photographs, prints, books, and object records can be found at our online catalog mountauburn.pastperfectonline.com, and founding documents including 19th-century letters and manuscripts can be found at our online crowdsourced transcription platform: fromthepage.com/mountauburncemetery.
Position Summary
Mount Auburn Cemetery seeks a highly organized, self-motivated, and collaborative Digital Archivist for a full-time position. This role will be on the ground floor of creating a digital archival repository for Mount Auburn and will serve as a key team player to support the planning and execution of a cemetery-wide digital business transformation initiative. They will manage the long-term stewardship and preservation of Mount Auburn’s born-digital assets and digital facsimiles while working to ensure their accessibility and usability.
The Digital Archivist will assist the Curator in advising the Cemetery on preservation of digital assets, coordinating and troubleshooting, and processing tasks and projects. They will serve as liaison with colleagues in the Historical Collections & Archives, IT, and Cemetery Services, as well as across other departments within the Cemetery. They will appraise, process, prepare, and ingest files for permanent preservation and online access; support efficient workflows for metadata creation and enhancement; and provide subject matter expertise in integrating the digital collection with other tools.
Candidates should demonstrate experience in a broad range of digital document processing tasks, knowledge of archival preservation principles and practices, and familiarity with digital asset preservation solutions. To succeed in this role, candidates must have effective interpersonal and communication skills, an appreciation of diverse stakeholder perspectives, and make decisions that align with the institutional goals of the Cemetery.
DUTIES AND KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Assists Curator in determining policies and procedures for the curation and stewardship of digital materials according to professional standards and scalable and sustainable methods.
- Ingests digital records and accompanying metadata into an archival digital preservation repository, Preservica.
- Assists in selecting, configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting hardware and software used for accessioning, processing, and preservation workflows.
- Coordinates with internal and external stakeholders to maintain the flow of digital collections throughout accessioning and processing workflows and project lifecycles. Collaborates with partners within the Historical Collections & Archives, Cemetery, Services, IT, and beyond regarding education and outreach to promote the use of digital collections according to best practices.
- May supervise other staff such as catalogers, data managers, archives volunteers, and academic interns.
- Accessions, and processes born-digital materials and records that have been changed into a digital format. Creates accession records and finding aids for digital archives.
- As a leader in digital preservation, engages in regional and national communities, integrating best and emerging practices.
- Provides support and completes tasks as needed within the Historical Collections & Archives Department.
- MLS or MLIS degree from an ALA-accredited library school, or equivalent accredited degree, is required.
- Demonstrated experience of 1-2 years in cultural heritage digitization or digital preservation.
- In-depth knowledge of and displayed interest in digital preservation.
- Training in current archival theory and practice.
- Experience in archives, information science, computing, digital archiving, preservation, and electronic records management.
- Strong knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of software tools, particularly Excel.
- Experience with scripting for process automation, with Python experience strongly preferred.
- Working experience with structured data, digital object standards, and metadata formats, standards, and frameworks (i.e., METS, MODS, ALTO, MARC, IIIF, Dublin Core, etc.).
- Working knowledge of United States copyright law and fair use.
- Familiarity with standards and best practices for cultural heritage digitization and digital preservation.
- Experience reading 19th and 20th-century handwritten documents preferred.
OTHER QUALIFICATIONS TO BE CONSIDERED:
- Knowledge of current standards and methods for OCR and HTR (including tools such as ABBYY and Transkribus).
- Knowledge of forensic software to get file count, file size, and file category of collections.
Physical Requirements
- Ability to remain in a stationary position for at least 50% of the time.
- Visual acuity, including color vision.
- Frequently twists/bends/stoops/squats, lifts/carries/pushes/pulls objects that weigh up to 15 pounds.
- Occasionally stands/walks, reaches/works above shoulders.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is an equal-opportunity employer. It does not discriminate in employment opportunities on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, gender, national origin, age, pregnancy, citizenship status, physical or mental ability, military status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by law.
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