Digital Archival Associate

Position Title: Digital Archival Associate
Department: Library, Information, and Technology Services (LITS) – Strategic Collections and Archives
Reports To: Archivist
FLSA Classification: Non-Exempt 
Hours: 37.5 hours per week; normal full-time weekday schedule

Position Summary

The Digital Archival Associate is a hands-on archival professional who independently manages routine approved digitization projects and serves as the primary day-to-day administrator of the Seminary’s private institutional repository. Working under the Archivist, the Associate converts analog documents, photographs, audiovisual recordings, microforms, and other approved resources into well-documented digital assets; processes born-digital accessions under the Archivist’s direction; coordinates annual records collection from Seminary offices; performs quality control and repository ingest; maintains metadata, permissions, file integrity, and preservation records; and protects private, restricted, copyrighted, and confidential materials according to established archival policies.

Essential Functions and Key Responsibilities

Christian Faith and Missional Commitment

- Demonstrates a mature and active Christian faith consistent with the Wesleyan-Holiness identity and mission of Asbury Theological Seminary.

- Affirms and supports the Seminary’s Statement of Faith, Ethos Statement, Mission Statement, and applicable community standards.

- Participates appropriately in the worshiping and spiritual life of the Seminary community.

- Integrates Christian character, stewardship, integrity, patience, accuracy, confidentiality, and respect into archival work and constituent relationships.

- Recognizes the preservation of the Seminary’s institutional memory and historical resources as service to its teaching, scholarship, mission, and community.

Routine Digitization Project Management

- Independently manages routine, approved digitization projects from material intake and condition review through conversion, quality control, metadata creation, repository ingest, and final documentation.

- Confirms project scope, priorities, source materials, required outputs, naming conventions, metadata expectations, access restrictions, preservation requirements, and completion criteria with the Archivist.

- Develops practical work plans, production sequences, tracking records, equipment assignments, quality-control steps, and schedules.

- Maintains intellectual and physical control of materials throughout preparation, conversion, processing, return, and storage.

- Documents project status, exceptions, technical decisions, preservation actions, errors, and completion accurately.

- Escalates unusual, sensitive, confidential, fragile, damaged, obsolete, legally restricted, or technically complex materials to the Archivist.

- Does not independently change collection priorities, archival policies, appraisal decisions, or approved project scope.

Analog-to-Digital Conversion

- Digitizes approved documents, photographs, negatives, slides, audio recordings, videotapes, microforms, and other analog formats.

- Prepares and handles source materials carefully according to established archival and preservation procedures.

- Operates approved scanners, cameras, audio and video conversion systems, playback equipment, computers, and related digitization tools.

- Creates preservation masters, production files, and access derivatives in approved formats and resolutions.

- Performs image, audio, and video capture; cropping; orientation; color or tonal adjustment; file processing; transcoding; and other authorized corrections without altering historical meaning or evidential integrity.

- Performs systematic quality control for completeness, legibility, focus, color, sound, synchronization, technical specifications, file naming, and metadata accuracy.

- Refers fragile, damaged, rare, unstable, obsolete, or unsupported formats to the Archivist for specialized handling, conservation review, or approved external conversion.

- Maintains clean, orderly, secure, and preservation-conscious digitization workspaces.

Private Institutional Repository Administration

- Serves as the primary day-to-day administrator of the Seminary’s private institutional repository.

- Performs approved file ingest, collection organization, metadata entry and maintenance, user-account administration, permission assignment, routine troubleshooting, and usage reporting.

- Applies established collection structures, metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, naming conventions, identifiers, relationships, and descriptive practices.

- Maintains accurate links among source materials, digital files, repository records, restrictions, rights information, and preservation documentation.

- Provides approved internal users with appropriate assistance in locating, understanding, and accessing authorized repository resources.

- Documents repository configuration, workflows, permissions, recurring issues, and operational changes.

- Recognizes that the Archivist retains authority for archival policy, appraisal, access restrictions, collection priorities, and exceptional access decisions.

- Does not independently publish, release, distribute, or grant external access to repository materials without the Archivist’s approval.

Born-Digital Accessioning and Institutional Records Coordination

- Processes born-digital accessions under the direction of the Archivist and according to established appraisal, transfer, description, preservation, and access requirements.

- Receives, inventories, verifies, organizes, documents, and ingests approved born-digital records while preserving provenance, original order, file relationships, and available transfer information.

- Coordinates the annual collection of institutional records from Seminary offices according to schedules, priorities, instructions, and requirements established by the Archivist.

- Communicates with designated office representatives concerning annual submissions, approved transfer methods, required documentation, file organization, deadlines, and follow-up.

- Tracks office participation, submissions, outstanding records, transfer status, exceptions, and completion and reports unresolved matters to the Archivist.

- Assists the Archivist and Seminary offices in documenting and maintaining departmental records-retention schedules, inventories, transfer procedures, and related guidance.

- Provides practical training and assistance to Seminary offices concerning repository submission, file preparation, naming, organization, transfer, and approved records-retention practices.

- Does not independently appraise records, authorize destruction, establish retention periods, alter legal or institutional requirements, or accept exceptional transfers without the Archivist’s approval.

Digital Preservation and Technical Stewardship

- Monitors file integrity, checksums, storage status, backups, preservation formats, ingest results, fixity reports, and repository alerts according to established procedures.

- Maintains preservation masters separately from access derivatives and protects files from unauthorized alteration, deletion, disclosure, or distribution.

- Identifies corrupted, missing, duplicated, improperly named, unsupported, inaccessible, or at-risk files and initiates approved corrective action.

- Coordinates repository, storage, backup, security, authentication, integration, and other technical issues with the Archivist and appropriate LITS systems personnel.

- Maintains equipment logs, calibration information, conversion settings, format profiles, storage records, and preservation-action documentation.

- Participates in approved testing, migrations, upgrades, recovery exercises, and workflow improvements.

- Does not independently modify infrastructure, security controls, retention rules, backup configurations, or repository-wide settings outside assigned authority.

Rights, Restrictions, Privacy, and Access Control

- Applies established copyright, donor-restriction, privacy, confidentiality, records-management, retention, and access-control requirements.

- Reviews available rights and restriction information before digitization, ingest, description, access assignment, or reproduction.

- Assigns approved internal permissions and restrictions accurately and verifies that repository access reflects current authorization.

- Protects personally identifiable information, confidential institutional records, donor-restricted materials, credentials, and nonpublic repository content.

- Refers uncertain, conflicting, incomplete, sensitive, or exceptional rights and access questions to the Archivist before proceeding.

- Maintains appropriate records of approvals, restrictions, access changes, requests, reproductions, and disclosures.

Workflow Improvement, Documentation, and Reporting

- Follows digitization, metadata, preservation, repository, accessibility, documentation, security, and quality-control standards established by the Archivist.

- Identifies recurring errors, workflow inefficiencies, equipment limitations, format risks, metadata inconsistencies, storage concerns, training needs, and preservation priorities.

- Researches practical alternatives and submits evidence-based recommendations to the Archivist.

- Maintains accurate production statistics, project records, ingest logs, quality-control results, repository usage data, and status reports.

- Provides the Archivist with timely updates concerning progress, exceptions, risks, unresolved issues, access concerns, and recommendations.

- Contributes operational evidence for departmental planning, institutional assessment, accreditation, historical research, and continuous improvement.

Other Responsibilities

- Participates in LITS planning, assessment, accreditation support, and continuous-improvement activities as assigned.

- Maintains current knowledge of relevant professional standards, technologies, and practices through appropriate professional development.

- Performs other duties consistent with the scope and level of the position as assigned.

Financial Responsibility/Authority

- Holds no purchasing, contracting, budget-management, or financial-approval authority.

- Identifies needs involving digitization equipment, repository software, digital storage, preservation supplies, repairs, contractors, vendors, external conversion, and related services.

- Prepares recommendations describing need, expected benefit, urgency, cost considerations, compatibility, preservation impact, and operational implications.

- Submits all equipment, software, storage, preservation-supply, repair, contractor, and vendor recommendations to the Archivist.

- Does not commit funds, approve purchases, execute agreements, retain contractors, authorize vendor work, release materials for external conversion, or represent approval.

- Uses Seminary equipment, software, storage, supplies, and archival resources responsibly and reports loss, damage, security concerns, licensing issues, or anticipated costs.

Direct Supervision and Project/Team Leadership or Training

- Has no direct reports and does not conduct employee performance evaluations.

- Provides task-level direction, training, and quality-control guidance to authorized student workers, interns, volunteers, temporary personnel, and approved contractors assisting with digitization or repository work.

- Reports performance, conduct, confidentiality, preservation, security, or quality concerns to the Archivist and does not hire, discipline, retain, dismiss, or make formal personnel commitments.

Tools and Equipment

- Flatbed, sheet-fed, book, film, and photographic digitization equipment as available; audio/video capture systems; image, audio, video, OCR, and metadata software; digital repositories and preservation storage; checksumming and file-management tools; archival supplies; library systems; and standard office equipment.

Qualifications

Education, Certification, Training, Experience, and Skills

- A bachelor’s degree in archival studies, library or information science, history, digital humanities, media preservation, or a related field is preferred but not required.

- At least two years of relevant archival, digitization, repository, library, records-management, imaging, or audiovisual-conversion experience is preferred but not required.

- Position-specific training in approved digitization equipment, metadata practices, preservation workflows, and repository systems will be provided on the job.

- Basic computer proficiency and the ability to learn new equipment, software, metadata practices, file formats, and repository systems are required.

- Demonstrated attention to detail, organization, confidentiality, careful material handling, accurate documentation, and consistent completion of repetitive quality-control work are required.

- Ability to independently manage routine approved projects, follow technical procedures, recognize exceptions, and seek guidance appropriately is required.

- Strong written communication, problem-solving, judgment, teamwork, and constituent-service skills are required.

- Experience with scanning, digital photography, audio or video conversion, born-digital accessioning, records retention, metadata, digital preservation, archival description, or institutional repositories is preferred.

- Demonstrated commitment to the mission, Statement of Faith, and community standards of Asbury Theological Seminary is required.

Work Schedule and Availability

- Maintains a normal full-time weekday schedule aligned with established departmental operating hours.

- No evening or weekend work is expected for this position.

- Coordinates planned absences, project schedules, and service coverage with the Archivist.

Physical and Archival-Handling Requirements

- Handles fragile, rare, aging, damaged, and potentially sensitive archival materials carefully and according to established procedures.

- Works for prolonged periods at computers, scanners, cameras, audiovisual-conversion stations, and quality-control workstations.

- Performs repeated keyboarding, scanning, material positioning, fine visual inspection, and attentive listening to audiovisual content.

- Safely lifts, carries, positions, and moves archival boxes, books, media, supplies, and digitization equipment weighing up to approximately 40 pounds.

- May bend, reach, kneel, stand, or use approved carts and step stools while retrieving, transporting, and positioning materials.

- Follows archival-handling, electrical, ergonomic, equipment-safety, privacy, security, and workplace-safety practices.

- Communicates any required workplace accommodation through the appropriate Employee Services (Human Resources) process.