Blog 10: Preservation Jobs--Apply for this Job...It Could be Yours!!!

At present, there seems to be a paucity of preservation/conservation jobs. On the iSchool JobWeb, there were only fifteen positions posted within the last 90 days in the professional (as opposed to student or fellowship) Preservation/Conservation category. The ALA JobList offered even fewer, with only five jobs listed under the Preservation/Conservation heading. It was interesting to see that the majority of the jobs posted on the ALA list were not duplicated on the iSchool JobwWeb and vice versa, an important reminder that we should be searching as many different joblists as possible. Moreover, as we discussed in class, it is important to search beyond the preservation/conservation category to find jobs that are preservation jobs but perhaps not explicitly indexed as such. Of the 20 total postings I exmained, there were 18 distinct jobs.

One of these (announced on the ALA JobList) was for the Director of Library Preservation at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. As the job posting states, this position entails:

• "managing the physical care, protection, and handling of the college’s general and special collections"
• "conducting preventive actions to preserve library and archival materials including digitization"
• "maintaining library-wide procedures for the proper storage and handling of collections"
• "supervising commercial binding and reformatting activities"

In addition to these duties, Goucher College would like someone who could built teaching partnerships with faculty and encourage undergraduate learning. They also reference wanting someone who could promote "an institutional repository," though since their requirements for the position do not mention any specific technological skills, it may be that they truly want someone to promote, conduct outreach on behalf of, and manage the digital repository rather than someone who will be working intimately with it on a daily basis.

Indeed, this position would be within reach of almost anyone graduating from the Conservation or Preservation Administration Certificate Programs. Its requirements are surprisingly minimal:

ALA-accredited master’s degree in library/information science with knowledge and experience in print and non-print preservation, basic conservation treatments, and institutional repositories. At least three years experience working in a library, special collections, or archival environment. Knowledge of preservation theory, standards, ethics, and current trends. Experience managing digitization projects, creating metadata, and utilizing digital asset management systems. Experience supervising students and para-professional staff.

This is perhaps because Goucher College is a small liberal arts university. It has only 1,350 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. Its library, the Julia Rogers Library, consists of 303,000 volumes and approximately 2,195 periodical subscriptions.

The position does, however, have a catch: it's only 32 hours a week and its salary is considerably lower ($35,000-$38,000) than most Director of Preservation positions would be. This said, it seems like an ideal position from which to grow. After working at this job for a few years, one would have acquired enough experience and resumé credentials to move on to managing preservation at a larger and more complicated library system at another university. In short, apply to this job: it could be yours!!!

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Position Advertisement: Director of Library Preservation, Goucher College. ALA JobList. Available at http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?scr=jobdetail&jobid=12814

"Facts and Statistics." Goucher College. Available at http://www.goucher.edu/x7735.xml

iSchool JobWeb (University of Texas). Available at http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/jobweb/