Director of Barnard Archives and Special Collections

Director of Barnard Archives and Special Collections

Director of Barnard Archives and Special Collections (BASC) provides visionary leadership for the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, advancing its role as a center for feminist archival practice, historical research, and digital preservation.

The Director of Barnard Archives and Special Collections (BASC) provides visionary leadership for the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, advancing its role as a center for feminist archival practice, historical research, and digital preservation. The Director ensures the long‑term stewardship, accessibility, and ethical care of materials documenting Barnard College and broader histories of feminist activism, art, and scholarship.

The Archives also provides access to researchers across the college and around the world through in‑person research appointments and class drop‑in sessions; remote reference over email; and our digital collections of highly used materials. The Archives manages digital collections through Archipelago, Barnard’s digital repository platform designed for open, flexible presentation and metadata‑rich access. In collaboration with the Barnard Academic Technologies and Learning Innovation Services (ATLIS) team, the Archives is in the process of implementing a sustainable digital preservation pipeline, ensuring long‑term management, authenticity, and accessibility of born‑digital and digitized materials in line with best practices in preservation, metadata standards, and feminist digital stewardship.

The Archives engages broad audiences through exhibition, programming, and online outreach, all embeded in the teaching and functioning of the college, prioritizing students, faculty, and staff of the College in all our work.

• Provides leadership, vision, and management for the Barnard Archives and Special Collections, developing policies, setting long‑term goals, and ensuring alignment with the mission and strategic priorities of Barnard College.
• Responsible for overseeing the operations of the Archives, including hiring, training, and supervising professional staff, graduate assistants, and student workers, fostering a collaborative and inclusive work culture.
• Manages development, strategic planning, and grant‑seeking initiatives that strengthen the Archives’ resources and visibility.
• Develops and communicates policies and procedures for the use of materials housed in the Archives.

• Leads efforts to appraise, acquire, process, document, and preserve Barnard’s institutional history and special collections materials in all formats, including born‑digital and hybrid collections, with adherence to standards and technical best practices.
• Develops and maintains sustainable digital preservation workflows, policies, and infrastructure in collaboration with vendors and Barnard Information Technology (BCIT) ATLIS staff.
• Manages archives software and systems, including locally‑hosted servers and cloud‑hosted/vendor‑supported digital collections.
• Manages the physical plant, monitoring humidity and temperature, and works with Capital Projects on space improvements.

• Directs, plans, prepares, and promotes exhibitions, loans, and public programming of archival materials, in collaboration with faculty, librarians, and other campus partners.
• Collaborates with faculty across disciplines to integrate primary source literacy and feminist archival theory into the curriculum.
• Manages and conducts archival and primary source reference, consultation, and instructional services to faculty, students, administrators, and outside researchers.
• Engages Personal Librarians, Milstein Centers, faculty, and students as partners in integrating archival research and methods into the curriculum and exhibition work.

• Builds partnerships with feminist, activist, and community archives to advance collective documentation and preservation goals, regionally and nationally.
• Serves as the primary liaison…