Metdata Specialist
Metadata Specialist
As Chicago’s oldest cultural institution, the Chicago History Museum is the proud custodian of over 23 million objects ranging from presidential artifacts to 60’s couture. Located in this world-class city at the south end of Lincoln Park, this position offers the right candidate an opportunity to share Chicago’s stories with our audiences and visitors. This is temporary assignment position with Advance Resources Staffing Agency.
The temporary, part-time Metadata Specialist assists CHM’s Collections and Curatorial staff in implementing a large-scale project to digitize and make accessible approximately 4.5 million images from the newly-acquired Chicago Sun-Times collection.
The Metadata Specialist arranges a portion of the collection, implements file naming and metadata standards to create and enhance job-level metadata, and selects representative images for each job in order to facilitate access and discovery of the digital images and negatives.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- · Arrange the appx. 150,000 negative envelopes that correspond to existing images in sequential order by their pre-assigned scan number.
- · Rename files based on file naming convention and assign new filenames to batches of materials digitized by vendor.
- · Create or enhance job-level descriptive metadata for images following in-house metadata standards.
- · Select representative images for each negative envelope (photo job) to serve as the lead asset based on criteria developed by Collections and Curatorial staff.
- · Assign subject terms to jobs based on custom authority list developed by Collections and Research and Access staff.
- · Serve on the project team alongside other Collections and Curatorial staff.
- · Participate in outreach opportunities.
- · Commitment to the mission, values, and programs of the Chicago History Museum
- · Other duties as assigned.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- · BA in history, digital humanities, library and information science, museum studies, or related field.
- · General knowledge of Chicago and American history.
- · Strong background in data entry and research.
- · Experience working with archival photographic materials preferred.
- · Keen attention to detail.
- · Ability to exercise good judgment in balancing high productivity with high accuracy and completeness.
- · Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
- · Ability to work collaboratively on complex projects.
- · Demonstrated organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
- · Familiarity with database structures and metadata standards preferred.
- · Ability to stay focused during mundane tasks.