Associate Archivist

The Disciples of Christ Historical Society seeks a collaborative and resourceful Associate Archivist with a growth mindset and a commitment to continuous improvement. The Associate Archivist is an integral part of a small team of archivists, student workers, interns, and volunteers who together accession, arrange, describe, catalog, preserve, and provide access to the Historical Society’s collections. 

Primary Responsibilities:

Provide leadership for the DCHS acquisitions and accessioning activities by:

• Fielding inquiries from and corresponding with potential donors of manuscripts, books, and artifacts
• Building and maintaining relationships with donors, in coordination with the President and Senior Archivist
• Managing logistics and communications around shipping and receiving new acquisitions and deeds of gift
• Creating and maintaining acquisition and accessioning files
• Appraising acquisitions against the DCHS collecting policy and separating / weeding extraneous materials
• Rehousing, labeling, and assigning locations to acquisitions and accessions in the archival vault and the offsite storage area
• Creating and maintaining field guidance for the accessions module of the archival information management system
• Creating and publishing standards-based accession records that include preliminary archival description 
• With the Senior Archivist, prioritizing the processing of new accessions
• Maintaining accessioning statistics and compiling reports
• Recommending and implementing improvements to acquisitions and accessioning policies, procedures, and workflows 

Coordinate and participate in reference and research services for the DCHS by:

• Serving as the primary point of contact for and provider of reference and research services to a diverse user community of church leaders, academic researchers, and genealogists
• Receiving and responding to reference and research requests submitted via email, phone, and the web portal
• Registering onsite researchers and maintaining researcher records
• Monitoring the reading room and assisting onsite patrons
• Conducting limited research for remote patrons and creating and managing digital reproductions of collection materials for remote researchers
• Retrieving and reshelving collections materials paged for reference and research requests
• Maintaining reference and paging statistics and compiling reports
• Recommending and implementing improvements to reference policies, procedures, and workflows 

Additional Responsibilities

Assist the Senior Archivist in the preparation of acquisition proposals for large and/or significant acquisitions, deaccessioning proposals, and deaccessioning logistics

Participate in the implementation and management of collection management systems, including a new archival information management system

Contribute to the collaborative development and improvement of policies, procedures, and workflows for all archival functions

Contribute to the Historical Society’s communications program by writing newsletter articles and suggesting social media content. 

Contribute to the archival arrangement and description program by writing processing plans, participating in peer review of finding aids, and, as time permits, processing collections.

Perform other duties as assigned