Archives Technician

The Archives Technician is responsible for assisting with the arrangement, description, preservation, cataloging and access to NMAI's moderately large archival collections.

• Assist the Head Archivist and Archive Center staff in the physical collections management of a wide-range of archival materials including but not limited to papers, photographs, film, video, and sound recordings. Responsibilities include tracking, rehousing, and storing of archival collections; monitoring temperature, relative humidity, and storage conditions; conducting archival collection inventories and surveys; and reorganizing and refiling collections materials, among other duties related to the care, preservation, and management of archival collections.
• Process new and legacy archival collections. Apply basic preservation methods including removing damaging residue or attachments; rehousing documents in acid free folders and containers; and identifying and maintaining a running list of fragile materials that require preservation treatment and digitization.
• Describe archival materials for both new acquisitions and unprocessed legacy collections. The description includes well-written and concise finding aids and collection level records entered in Archivists’ Toolkit system in accordance with archival descriptive standards including DACS.
• Prepare small purchase orders to secure supplies and services from outside vendors.
• Work on administrative and program support tasks including arranging travel for staff and contracted consultants, including scheduling transportation, making hotel reservations, supporting staff en route and preparing travel authorizations and vouchers.
• Assist the Reference Archivist in providing reference and research services both onsite and remotely, to the public, Native American communities and constituents, researchers, and Smithsonian staff.
• Assist on-site researchers in the Archive Center reading room by identifying appropriate collections, pulling items, assisting in their use, and refiling them. Answers staff and public inquiries by performing necessary research about archival holdings and responding in a detailed manner via email, phone, or letter.

Conditions of employment

• Pass Pre-employment Background Investigation
• May need to complete a Probationary Period
• Maintain a Bank Account for Direct Deposit/Electronic Transfer
• Males born after 12/31/59 must be registered with Selective Service.

Qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

For information on qualification requirements, see Qualification Standards Handbook for General Schedule Positions on

Experience:

You qualify for this position if you have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-06 level in the Federal Service. For this position, specialized experience is defined as working on archival arrangement, preservation, and description of manuscript, photo, and audiovisual (AV) collections; using archive management systems (Archivists’ Toolkit, Archives Space, Archon, etc.), providing reference service to archival researchers, and executing basic administrative tasks (i.e., arranging travel for staff and preparing small purchase orders).

Must have experience working with AV collections including identifying formats, inspecting, cleaning, splicing, rehousing, and describing audiovisual collections.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, Ameri Corps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies,…