Digital Archivist

Job title: Digital Archivist

In accordance with the mission of Syracuse University Libraries (SUL) and the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), the Digital Archivist helps collect, accession, process, preserve, and provide access to born-digital materials documenting the history of Syracuse University and our global society.

Reporting to SCRC’s Lead Archivist, the Digital Archivist works with SCRC and Department of Digital Stewardship (DDS) to develop and implement policies, standards, and procedures supporting the acquisition, processing, and creation of access to born-digital materials in SCRC collections. Materials may include email, web content, and born-digital files extracted from legacy physical media. Following best practices, the Digital Archivist advises and assists with the acquisition of born-digital materials, processes and describes them, and collaborates with SCRC and DDS staff to make them available for research and classroom use. The Digital Archivist works directly with the Digital Preservation Librarian, who ensures that SCRC’s digital content is securely maintained and persistent, safeguarding long-term access to and authenticity of born-digital assets. The Digital Archivist also plays a key role in applying a reparative framework to the acquisition and description of born-digital materials.

Education and Experience

Required qualifications:

• ALA-accredited Master of Library and Information Science degree or related Advanced degree.
• At least two years full-time experience arranging and describing born-digital and physical materials in a special collections or archives.

Desired qualification:

• Digital Archives Specialist certification from the Society of American Archivists or equivalent education and experience.

Librarian Rank and Compensation

Skills and Knowledge

Best combination of:

• Knowledge of and experience with professional archival standards, best practices, and technologies for capturing, accessing, arranging, describing, preserving and transferring digital archival materials, including web archiving.
• Significant understanding of laws and ethics that inform digital archives and digitization activities in a higher ed. environment.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate and work effectively with technical and non-technical staff, faculty, researchers, and donors.
• Experience working with colleagues in collaborative and team environments as well as working independently.
• Knowledge of applicable state and federal laws as well as common standards regarding accessibility of digital content.
• Proficiency with relevant web archiving tools (such as ArchiveIt) and the WARC format, digital preservation tools (such as Preservica), and email archiving tools (such as ePADD or RATOM).
• Proficiency with strategies for collecting and describing social media content.
• Experience using AI with tasks such as description and identification of duplicate and sensitive information.
• Proficiency with scripting languages or tools (e.g., Python, SQL, XSLT, OpenRefine, etc.) to transform, apply, or remediate metadata.

Responsibilities

• Archival Processing and Management
• Arrange and describe born-digital and hybrid archival collections and create DACS-compliant EAD finding aids.
• Develop, implement, and regularly update policies and workflows for processing born-digital archival collection materials, working collaboratively with SCRC and DDS staff.
• Coordinate the transfer of digital materials from a variety of current and legacy storage medi