Seeking a Digital Archivist to appraise a DC-area museum's historically significant digital institutional records for disposition, to prepare permanent, official records for long-term preservation and access, to ingest assets into the Collection Information System (CIS), Digital Asset Management System (DAMS), and to dispose of records with limited or short-term value in accordance with established records retention policies. Files consist of images of archaeological and ethnographic objects, archival photographs, catalog cards, acquisition documentation, conservation and scientific analysis records, treatment photos, exhibit, loan, publication, repatriation records, audiovisual production assets, community engagement documentation, museum documentation images, third-party exhibition images, and other project documentation that involves multiple departments including education and outreach, exhibition planning and design, publications, and research and curatorial materials.
The contractor shall demonstrate technical experience with digital asset management principles, practices, and standards. The contractor shall also have understanding and specialized experience with software for asset management tasks including creating file system inventories, maintaining data within spreadsheets, renaming files, migrating file formats, transcoding video, embedding metadata, and running fixity checks. Applications may include but are not limited to Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premier, BWF Metaedit, Foxit PhantomPDF, Microsoft Office suite, The National Archives’ Digital Record Object Identification tool (DROID), collection information systems, particularly Axiell’s EMu, and digital asset management systems, particularly Open Text’s Media Management. Additional instruction and written procedures will be provided to the contractor by the Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative (COTR). The contractor must be self-motivated, able to work independently, and meet measurable goals and time frames.
Scope of Work
The contractor shall provide professional, technical, and non-personal digital archiving services to ensure the long-term preservation and access of audio, video, still image, and text assets in digital formats.
Specific Tasks
Following museum procedures and working in coordination with and under the guidance of the COTR, the contractor shall perform the following tasks which may include but are not limited to:
- Attend all institution, museum, unit, and team meetings that facilitate project communication, progress, or directly affects the contractor’s work as identified by the COTR.
- Appraise records in consultation with COTR and asset creators.
- Create file system inventories, eliminate duplicate material, rename files, migrate files to standard preservation and access formats, and verify fixity.
- Assign metadata to born-digital and digital surrogate records, including audiovisual, still image, and textual digital assets using metadata schemes.
- Support the museum's testing and use of DAMS and CIS integration functionality relating to agency ingest and DAMS asset delivery service.
- Review media assets and digital collections for legal, ethical, and policy restrictions in consultation with COTR and agency's Intellectual Property Manager.
- Prepare appraised and selected digital assets for import into DAMS or transfer.
- Manage ingested assets and metadata in CIS and DAMS.
- Update digital archiving workflow and records retention schedule documentation following guidelines if necessary.
- Work within the established standards for digital asset and digital content management.
Experience with the following:
- Digital Asset Management Systems
- Tools for embedding metadata
- Tools for deduplicating files
- Tools for generating checksums
- Tools for transcoding video
Benefits:
- Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
- Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
- Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
- Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
- Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
- Short Term & Long Term Disability
- Training & Development
- Work From Home
- Wellness Resources