Assistant Archivist

Description

The American Song Archives manages the Bob Dylan Center® and the Woody Guthrie Center® in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These centers house the archives of Bob Dylan, Cynthia Gooding, Woody Guthrie, Harold Leventhal, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, the personal libraries of Ron Cohen, Harry Smith, and Izzy Young, and numerous other smaller collections.

At American Song Archives, our mission is to preserve the legacy of America's most enduring and inspiring songwriters. American Song Archives operates the Woody Guthrie Center and Bob Dylan Center. The Woody Guthrie Center celebrates the life, music, and artistry of the influential folk musician while seeking to ignite a passion for social change and foster a world where the values of justice, equality, and compassion prevail.

The Bob Dylan Center inspires and celebrates fearless creativity by exploring the music and artistry of the Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter as a catalyst for personal expression and cultural change.

Reporting to the Archives Manager, the Assistant Archivist works collaboratively within the archives team to support the day-to-day functions of the archives. This position will take a leading role in accessioning new archival acquisitions, providing stewardship for archival collections, accessioning both physical and digital materials in a variety of formats, and documenting provenance, original order, and/or context of creation gained during communications with donors.

The Assistant Archivist oversees the creation of initial description for all holdings, ensuring administrative and physical control and intellectual access, providing the foundation on which future archival work will be built. The Assistant Archivist also assists with processing archival collections, creating and updating finding aids, assisting with reference services and reading room duties, and performing collections management activities. The successful candidate will have excellent organizational and time management skills, attention to detail, strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively across teams and will demonstrate initiative and follow-through with projects and tasks.

Accessioning Duties

• Establishes baseline administrative, physical, and intellectual control over new and existing physical and digital acquisitions, including inventorying recently acquired materials and backlogged items, as well as creating accession records within Archives Space according to best practices
• Frequently communicates with donors in possession of potential acquisitions, coordinates secure transfer of new acquisitions, and prepares and tracks donor gift receipts and deeds of gift through endorsement and finalization
• Oversees accessioning of new acquisitions, including pre-custodial interventions and stabilization of materials
• Identifies and implements preservation treatments as needed, including preservation assessments, rehousing and labeling, and assigning permanent locations to ensure proper management and accessibility

Processing Duties

• Works closely with archives staff, student workers, and interns on collection processing priorities, strategy, and decisions based on context gained during the accessioning process
• Maintains library and archival materials (papers, posters, books, periodicals, photographs, artwork, audio, film, video, ephemera, and digital files) ensuring proper inventory, arrangement, description, storage, and preservation
• Processes collections and prepares DACS-compliant finding aids in Archives Space in support of reference, exhibition, and research needs among staff and researchers

Reference & Research Services

• Assists with reading room…