Civil War Archives Metadata Assistant, Ohio University Libraries, (Athens, Ohio)
Posted November 8, 2022
Ohio University Libraries seeks a graduate student to work remotely as a Metadata Assistant. This grant-funded project aims to increase the discoverability of an existing online collection, Civil War Correspondence, by performing metadata enhancement through subject analysis, applying both broad and specific subject headings, as well as free text description. This will be an integral step in preparing the collection for inclusion in the Ohio Digital Network which will then be harvested by the Digital Public Library of America.
The Civil War Correspondence digital collection contains more than 1000 digitized and fully transcribed items from 12 manuscript collections. Most of the materials are letters written to and from soldiers and their families who were from or living in Ohio. A major goal for the project is to provide descriptions that assist users in finding content related to slavery, political views, and women’s perspectives. A successful candidate for this position should be familiar with the history of the Civil War, Ohio history, and/or have experience in historical subject analysis and metadata creation.
The assistant will be supervised by the Manuscripts Archivist within the Libraries’ Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections. They will also work in collaboration with the Libraries’ Digital Initiatives unit to prepare metadata for ingest. The work will involve accessing online digitized letters, and existing item records in the Civil War Correspondence collection, researching and identifying appropriate subject headings, and documenting these in a spreadsheet. The assistant will also write short descriptive summaries to provide additional context for a subset of letters.
Pay: The position pays $20.00 per hour and lasts for 225 hours, not to exceed 28 hours in any one week. The work will finish in April 2023 and the start date is flexible. Work is planned to be entirely remote.
Minimum Qualifications
– Applicant must be enrolled in a related graduate program (archives, library science, history, public history, social sciences, or other humanities discipline) in the United States.
– Proficiency with spreadsheets.
– Excellent communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work independently and remotely.
Preferred Qualifications
– Coursework or experience with metadata, cataloging, or archives for understanding core concepts in this work.
– Subject knowledge of the Civil War and/or Ohio history.
– Digital collections experience and experience with reparative description.
How to Apply
See www.ohiouniversityjobs.com/postings/43929 for more information and to apply. Closes Monday November 21, 2022
Contact: Applicants may contact this person if they have questions about this position: Greta Suiter, Manuscripts Archivist, [email protected]