Curator of Born Digital Special Collections

About the role

The Curator of Born Digital Special Collections is a member of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) at Vanderbilt University. This position is responsible for the active curation, management, and long-term preservation of born-digital and digitized materials within SCUA collections.

Responsibilities

• Evaluate and acquire born-digital materials for SCUA in collaboration with subject curators, librarians, university administrators, faculty, and donors.
• Develop and maintain policies, standards, procedures, and workflows for the accessioning, processing, description, preservation, and access of born-digital materials within Special Collections and University Archives.
• Collaborate with SCUA colleagues to establish and refine policies, standards, and workflows for the efficient processing, preservation, and long-term management of digitized special collections materials produced both in-house and through external vendors.
• Ensure that digital preservation policies, standards, and workflows align with existing archival practices for physical collections to preserve integrity, authenticity, provenance, and archival bond of hybrid and born-digital collections.
• In partnership with Library Technology and Assessment Services (LTAS), University IT, and other library units, lead the operational implementation and management of digital preservation and access workflows across Vanderbilt Library systems and infrastructure.
• Provide guidance and training to SCUA curators, librarians, and staff to support consistent and effective application of digital preservation standards and practices.
• Collaborate with SCUA colleagues to develop policies, standards, workflows, documentation, and training programs that strengthen digital preservation capacity across SCUA and expand staff competency in digital stewardship practices over time.
• Collaborate with faculty, SCUA colleagues, and library staff to deliver instruction, outreach, and public engagement related to digital preservation, born-digital archives, and SCUA digital collections for Vanderbilt students, researchers, and community audiences.
• Supervise and train student workers to enable digital preservation work in SCUA and throughout the libraries, providing unique experiential learning opportunities in this emerging field of computing, archival science, and librarianship.
• Lead the continued development and management of Vanderbilt University’s web archiving program, to create, preserve, and provide access to high-quality web archives documenting Vanderbilt University, donor organizations, and Nashville and Tennessee communities.
• Partner with the University Archives team and university administration to support the development and implementation of university digital records management policies and practices, including the preservation of digital and digitized records from the Board of Trust and the Chancellor’s Office.
• Maintain and expand the SCUA digital asset register by identifying at-risk digital materials and developing workflows and procedures to transition those materials into managed preservation environments.
• Apply digital forensics and preservation technologies to acquire, preserve, and provide access to born-digital materials received on legacy physical media, while advancing innovative approaches for the stewardship and use of these collections.
• Work collaboratively with metadata specialists, librarians, Digital Lab staff, IT professionals, and external vendors to explore and implement emerging AI-supported approaches that enhance description, discovery, and access for digitized and born-digital collections.
• Lead SCUA’s annual digital preservation self-assessment using the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM), working with SCUA staff and institutional partners to use assessment outcomes to guide continuous improvement of the digital preservation program and infrastructure.
• Engage actively with the international digital preservation community by representing Vanderbilt University through participation in professional organizations and consortia, including the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Consortium.
• Lead and coordinate Vanderbilt University’s contributions to collaborative digital preservation initiatives, professional working groups, and community-based projects.
• Provide reference, research, and access support for users of born-digital and digitized archival collections.
• Participate in library outreach, communications, and fundraising activities that promote the acquisition, preservation, and use of born-digital special collections.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated knowledge of the preservation of born digital archival materials, including file formats, metadata, and other digital preservation issues.
• Demonstrated knowledge of relevant standards and best practices for managing born-digital materials in an archival context (e.g., OAIS, NDSA, DPC RAM, PREMIS, RIC, DACS, and EAD).
• Demonstrated knowledge of fundamental digital preservation tools and technologies (e.g., DROID, PRONOM, Bit-Curator, Siegfried, JHOVE, e-pad).
• Excellent organizational, analytical, and critical thinking skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Strong commitment to excellent user service.
• Confidentiality in handling sensitive records.
• Familiarity with one or more cloud storage and processing environments (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud).
• Experience with ArchivesSpace for archival or specials collection cataloging.
• Experience working with born digital collections in an academic library or archive.
• Familiarity with one or more programming languages (e.g., Python, Ruby) and scripting tools.
• Experience with digital forensics and/or data recovery.
• Familiarity with copyright and intellectual property issues related to born digital materials.
• Working knowledge of intellectual property issues related to archives, libraries, and special collections and copyright issues associated with audio, video, print, and digital technologies.
• Familiarity with large scale digital preservation systems or platforms (e.g., Preservica, Archivematica, Rosetta, Libnova).