Assistant Archivist - NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund

Location: USA - NY - New York

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the country’s first and foremost civil and human rights law organization. Founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall, who subsequently became the first Black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, LDF was launched at a time when the nation’s aspirations for equality and due process of law were stifled by widespread state-sponsored racial inequality. From that era to the present, LDF’s mission has been transformative–to achieve racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society.

Housed within LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute, a multidisciplinary center within LDF that complements the organization’s traditional litigation, through innovative research, publications, targeted advocacy, and public education campaigns.... the Archives and Records Department serves three major functions: building and managing an archival repository of LDF’s historic records, providing library services including research support, and coordinating the process by which records become part of the LDF Archives. LDF is undertaking a major effort to organize, preserve, digitize, and create a website featuring a substantial portion of our 8,000 boxes of rich historical case files and institutional records. LDF is also launching an oral history initiative. Under the supervision of the Director of Archives and Records, the Archives Project Manager keeps projects such as the digitization, website, and oral history projects on track by coordinating workflows among project teams, managing timelines, securing resources, monitoring budgets, facilitating meetings, and documenting progress.

Responsibilities:

• Process archival collections according to professional and departmental standards, including rehousing, arranging, and describing materials;
• Prepare records for digitization, including minimal processing tasks, creating folder list registry for the digitization vendor, and compiling special instructions for fragile materials;
• Transfer digitized and born-digital records into Preservica using established workflows, assigning metadata to digitized items;
• Survey unprocessed case files and institutional records and update box-level descriptions in the FileTrail collection management database;
• Assist with background research for oral history interviews, and help review final interviews to identify content for use on the archives website;
• Curate collection items to include on the archives website;
• Maintain onsite Archives storage spaces and ensure the professional and secure storage and handling of collection materials;
• Support organization-wide information management initiatives, including a document management system implementation project;
• Facilitate pickups and deliveries of Archives boxes from offsite storage;
• Participate in the ongoing assessment and updating of departmental policies, procedures, and workflows in collaboration with other Archives staff;
• Assist LDF staff with archival research requests, including small in-house digitization projects;
• Occasional travel to LDF’s Washington, D.C. office; and
• Other responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Graduate degree in Library and Information Science or related field, including archival coursework;
• Demonstrated understanding of the basic principles of archival appraisal, arrangement and description, as well as current trends in digital archives;
• Experience with any of the following tools is a plus: Preservica, FileTrail, NetDocuments, Archive-It, and digital asset management systems;
• A collaborative, communicative, and adaptable approach;
• Commitment to the racial justice mission of LDF and civil rights.

Salary range starting at $60k + benefits

More information: https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/careers/assistant-archivist/

Application instructions:

Please submit your resume/cv and cover letter to [email protected]