Job Summary

The Furman University Libraries welcome applications for the newly-created full-time faculty position of Archivist / Digital Collections Librarian (a 2-year term appointment) at the rank of Assistant Librarian. This position will work in Special Collections and Archives.

Position Summary

Funded in part by The Duke Endowment, this 2-year visiting faculty position in the University Libraries will be responsible for coordinating existing digital archival efforts related to Furman’s racial history and expanding the Libraries’ digital collections efforts in areas related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and Furman’s racial history. The incumbent will also serve as the coordinator for a cohort of graduate student researchers at the other Duke Endowment institutions: Duke University, Davidson College, and Johnson C. Smith University. This cohort will work on a collaborative initiative funded by The Duke Endowment to conduct research on the racial history of the four institutions. The results of this cohort’s work will take the form of online or in-person talks, campus symposia, websites, digital collections, and other activities at the four schools. In their second year, the Archivist / Digital Collections Librarian’s  responsibilities will grow into the assessment and creation of digital scholarship projects building on their work the previous year. They will collaborate with the Libraries’ Digital Collections Center to accomplish this work.

The incumbent’s work will be centered around: building on existing knowledge created by Furman faculty, staff, students, and classes around its racial history; helping to support ongoing research projects and document new discoveries by several groups on campus currently looking into Furman history; and acting as a central point around which the coordination of such new knowledge could be collected, housed, and shared in electronic formats by the University Libraries.

Because of the nature of this work, the incumbent will be expected to work closely with representatives of Furman’s Center for Inclusive Communities; the campus Diversity & Inclusion Committee; the Seeking Abraham Academic Initiatives Committee; and the newly-established Humanities Center, to list a few potential partners.

This position works in Special Collections and Archives under the supervision of the Associate Director for Special Collections and University Archivist with a dotted line of supervision to the Associate Director for Digital and Resource Management. The incumbent will work closely with the staff in the library’s Digital Collections Center and with Furman faculty interested in creating digital scholarship projects using the university’s archival and manuscript collections.

Essential Duties

• Accessions, preserves, and promotes electronic records of student groups, social media/website content, and other materials relating to race at Furman.
• Develops procedures and workflows for managing born-digital materials for ingest, description, preservation, and access.
• Administers and coordinates the work of The Duke Endowment Libraries research cohort at Duke, Davidson, and Johnson C. Smith Universities and serves as the Furman representative in this shared initiative.
• Liaises with and serves as a central point of reference and collection for the multiple student and faculty-student research projects into Furman and Greenville racial history currently in progress.
• Works with faculty to connect current students and student groups to these resources through instruction and outreach, supervising internships and research fellowships, and creating a better understanding of Furman’s past and present.
• Works with the Alumni and Development Offices to identify and create new ways for Furman alumni/ae to share and record their stories and personal experiences.
• Liaises with other campus units such as Housing, Athletics, and Student Affairs on their existing efforts and to identify and transfer records relating to Furman’s racial history to the University Archives.
• Creates presentations and interpretations of Furman historical documents regarding its racial history in the form of online exhibitions, interactive online tools, course units, publications, and social media.
• Builds a web-based digital archive/exhibition/document repository related to LGBTQ+ history and life at Furman.
• Coordinates the Furman oral history project and creates a coordinated oral history plan for future work by faculty, staff, and students.
• Leads a diversity, equity, and inclusion audit of the Furman Libraries’ Digital Collections and coordinates with the Digital Collections Center to implement changes.
• Assists in the development of a collection development policy for digital collections with diversity, equity, and inclusion as a central component.
• Creates, supports, and promotes high-impact classroom experiences for Furman students in collaboration with faculty.
• Promotes and supports collection access for researchers, donors, and Furman faculty, staff, alumni/ae, and students.

Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree accredited by the American Library Association (ALA) with formal training in archival work. Other advanced degree in a relevant discipline with significant and additional training and/or experience that specifically addresses the essential duties of this position will be considered.
• Demonstrated understanding of anti-racist concepts and practices and a demonstrated commitment to a reparative framework in archival work, with diversity, equity, and inclusion as an essential component of archival practice.
• Demonstrated ability to learn and understand digital collections software and metadata standards to create exhibitions, digital collections, and other digital resources.
• Demonstrated project management experience in an institutional setting.
• Demonstrably strong interpersonal, collaboration, and communications skills.
• Strong cultural competencies and a desire to work with diverse groups of patrons, staff, and students.
• Experience working collaboratively and independently with varied groups within a large organization and in a team environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated knowledge of digital preservation.
• Knowledge of web archiving tools such as Archive-It
• Experience working with web archives, digital repositories, and born-digital materials.

Salary and Benefits

Salary commensurate with experience (minimum $50,000). Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life plans, and matching retirement plan (TIAA). Generous conference and professional development support will be a part of this position.

Application Information

Interested applicants should submit a letter of application, a curriculum vitae (CV), and a diversity statement that describes how their education, professional experience, and life experiences might contribute to a liberal arts university that includes a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as one of its core values.

Applicants will also be asked to submit the names and contact information for three professional references. Transcript requests and background checks will be conducted in the final stage of the hiring process.

Review of applications will begin on: April 2, 2021.  

About Us

Founded in 1826, Furman University is a selective private liberal arts university committed to helping students develop intellectually, personally, and interpersonally and providing the practical skills necessary to succeed in a rapidly-changing world. Furman faculty are exceptional teacher-scholars who mentor undergraduate students within a campus community that values and encourages diverse ideas and perspectives. Furman has an institutional commitment to embrace diversity as an implicit value and as an explicit practice in all of its endeavors. Following an inquiry into Furman’s ties to slavery, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved a series of recommendations that will help educate the community about Furman’s history and commemorate Furman’s first African American students through educational programs, statues, historical plaques, and scholarships. Several research projects and initiatives have followed from this initial inquiry, and many faculty, staff, and students have been studying and working on these issues for several years now, with institutional support.

Our recently-launched strategic vision, The Furman Advantage, promises students an individualized four-year pathway facilitated by team of mentors and infused with a rich and varied set of high-impact experiences outside the classroom that include undergraduate research, study away, internships, community-focused learning, and opportunities to engage across differences.

Furman is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty and staff, and actively encourages applications from members of all groups underrepresented in higher education. The University aspires to create a community of people representing a multiplicity of identities including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, spiritual belief, socioeconomic background, geographic origin, ideology, world view, and varied abilities. Several faculty interest groups have formed within these underrepresented populations including African Americans and LGBTQ+. These groups encourage interested parties to interact with them during the search process. Furman extends comprehensive benefits to domestic partners of employees.

The Furman University Libraries include the James B. Duke Library, the Sanders Science Library, and the Maxwell Music Library. The Libraries have 26 employees (13 library faculty and 13 staff) and a robust collection of electronic and print materials. The Libraries are a member of the Oberlin Group consortium of liberal arts college libraries and have just migrated to a shared Alma/Primo library services platform.

The Department of Special Collections and Archives houses Furman’s collections of rare books, manuscripts, and the Furman University Archives. It contains the South Carolina Poetry Archives; several music collections, including the newly-acquired Microtonal Music Archive, the largest of its kind in the country; the South Carolina Baptist Historical Collection; and collections of historical objects and artifacts. Collection strengths include African American materials; Victorian London and the British empire; medieval manuscripts; British and American conduct manuals and courtesy books; LGBTQ+ history; growing collections in the history of books and printing; and collections of queer zines and contemporary artists’ books. The Department offers summer research and creative fellowships for undergraduate students and supports high-impact classroom experiences by offering fellowships for Furman faculty to enhance their course offerings using Special Collections materials.

Furman University is located on traditional Cherokee land in Greenville, South Carolina, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the Southeast and was just ranked #6 Small City in the U.S. by Condé Nast Traveler Magazine. The charming downtown features excellent restaurants, in-town parks, shops, museums, galleries, music venues, and theaters. The city also has excellent public and private schools and a vibrant international community. A 20-mile bike and running trail connects the university to Greenville and to nearby Travelers Rest, which was named “one of America’s coolest small towns.” The surrounding area abounds with outdoor recreational activities and has some of the most beautiful lakes, rivers, and mountains in the country. Greenville is within easy driving distance to Asheville, Atlanta, Charlotte, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Atlantic Beaches. Greenville-Spartanburg Airport runs daily flights to major cities and airline hubs.

Please follow these instructions to ensure your application is received successfully:

1. Go to Furman's Employment Website and select "Apply". Create an account.

2. Have all the required documents ready before you begin the application process. You cannot save your progress once you have started. If the process times out, you will lose your entire application. Required documents are:
   1. Cover letter
   2. Curriculum vitae (CV) or resume
   3. Diversity statement

3. On the Quick Apply page, upload your CV or resume and the system will extract content to auto-populate many of the fields in the application form.
4. On the My Experience page, do the following:
   1. Confirm that the "Work Experience" and "Education" were correctly extracted from your CV or resume especially the "Role Description" fields. Correct any problems.
   2. In the "Field of Study" drop-down, type in your field (e.g. "Library Science") rather than scrolling through the drop-down list which is incomplete. If you have a degree with no field of study, type "None".
   3. The "Resume/CV" section is where you will upload your cover letter. Your CV or resume should already be uploaded to this section from earlier. Select "Upload" and add your cover letter and diversity statement. Please wait for the document to finish uploading before clicking "Next"
5. On the Application page, provide contact information for your references.
6. On the Review page, ensure your information is correct and you have uploaded all required documents. You can make changes by hitting "Back" and "Next". If multiple pages require changes, make changes to the earlier pages first and the later pages last.

Once submitted, you will not be able to edit your application other than to change your contact information.