Digital Archivist

MISSION

The Art Institute of Chicago shares its singular collections with our city and the world. We collect, care for, and interpret works of art across time, cultures, geographies, and identities, centering the vision of artists and makers. We recognize that all art is made in a particular context, demanding continual, dynamic reconsideration in the present. We are a place of gathering; we foster the exchange of ideas and inspire an expansive, inclusive understanding of human creativity.

Please click on the links below to view our competitive, comprehensive benefits package:

• Hiring Range
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• PTO Overview
• Job Classification: Full-Time Salaried Staff
• Grade Level: 8

 

ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT 

A hub for scholarship and training, the Art Institute Research Center connects museum staff, art researchers and emerging professionals to transformative resources and experiences. The Research Center’s collections provide material means for the examination and reconsideration of artworks and their unique contexts, while globally networked tools and partnerships foster the exchange of ideas across diverse platforms. A robust engagement program ensures that knowledge is shared, new voices are heard, and accessibility is centered, expanding conventional notions of who conducts research and how. The Research Center’s dedication to the care and development of these three resource areas — material, digital and human — ensures the vitality  of museum research for present and future generations.

The expansive collections of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries are the backbone of the Research Center, and the historic Franke Reading Room is its public face. The Art Institute Archives stewards the museum’s art and architecture archives, institutional archives, imaging archives, and digital preservation efforts. Fellowships, internships, transformative grants and partnerships, trainings, and scholarly events are managed by the department of Academic Engagement and Research (AER). Together, the three branches of the Research Center — Libraries, Archives and AER — care for and connect audiences to a range of vital resources, including books, serials, special collections, auction catalogues, artists’ files, archives, extensive digital tools, and inter-generational human networks of diverse expertise.

 

ABOUT THE POSITION

Reporting to the Director of the Art Institute of Chicago Archives, the Digital Archivist is responsible for developing a sustainable infrastructure for collecting, organizing, describing, and preserving digital materials across the museum, and making digital materials accessible to staff and researchers; deploying that infrastructure to bring historically important digital institutional records into the AIC institutional archive; and preserving, processing, and making accessible other digital materials currently in the archival collections as well as newly acquired digital materials. *The Digital Archivist works collaboratively with fellow staff dedicated to the stewardship of the institutional archives, imaging archives and art and architecture archives to achieve departmental goals. *Facilitates access to the collections by developing and/or implementing digital tools and providing reference and research services to a diverse contingent of patrons in a service-oriented department in the Archives branch of the museum’s new Research Center. The Archivist also contributes to supporting exhibitions and to the development of programs and publications that feature the museum’s archival holdings or digital preservation efforts.

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

Collection management: Provides vision, focus, and leadership for digital preservation activities within the Research Center and the museum as a whole. Surveys the current digital landscape at the Art Institute, including born-digital records on current and legacy media, and digitized collections, in order to deve