Job Type: Full Time, Fixed Term until 30 November 2021
Category: Collection Care, Curation & Conservation
Reference: 03363
Application deadline: 18 September 2020
Interview date: 2 October 2020
Location: The British Library, St Pancras, London, UK
The British Library is continuing an exciting project, ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print,’ to research, catalogue and digitise the Library’s unique collections of early printed books from South Asia, dating from 1713 to 1914. This project involves the digitisation of the BL’s collection of early printed Bengali books, as well as the cataloguing of these resources and fostering research into new digital humanities methods for analysing the metadata generated in this project. The role of the project manager will be to control the project workflow and ensure that the project targets are achieved. The project manager will maintain a detailed work plan for the project, will liaise with a number of teams across the library, from Digital Imaging, Collections, Conservation, IT, to Copyright and Legal, and also be responsible for the internal and external reporting processes. The project manager will provide guidance and assistance to the project team, coordinate meetings and events with our UK and international stakeholders, and also assist in the organisation of the project board and advisory board meetings, as well as academic and practical workshops associated with the project. The project manager will also be responsible for maintaining and updating the web resource for the study of the BL’s collection of South Asian books, and the project manager will be responsible for ensuring the delivery of content for this website. Because the project work intersects with a number of other processes in the South Asia section, the project manager will also be responsible for managing related workflows, such as the ingestion of metadata in the BL’s cataloguing system, managing the process of clearing intellectual property rights for the project materials as well as related materials in the South Asia section, and assisting in the South Asia section when workflows intersect with the Two Centuries of Indian Print project.
The successful applicant will have excellent project management skills, such as the ability to coordinate work packages, manage risks, and estimate timescales and budgets, as well as possess good communication skills, the ability to work in a team, and to coordinate workflows with a number of other teams across the library. Knowledge of cataloguing and metadata standards for printed material is required, as is a strong knowledge of information technology, in particular the skills required to deliver on-line resources. The successful applicant will have a degree in South Asian studies or a relevant field (history, literature, cultural studies), or equivalent professional experience working with South Asia-related material or in a South Asia-related context. Also useful would be a familiarity with a South Asian language, preferably Bengali, Hindi or Urdu; or a willingness to develop at least a basic knowledge of other South Asian languages would be very useful for the role. The ability to communicate effectively and confidently with a range of stakeholders and partner institutions, both in the UK and internationally, is a requirement for the position, and the successful applicant will also have strong interpersonal, organisational, and decision-making skills.
As one of the world’s great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation’s intellectual memory for the future and make it available to all for research, inspiration and enjoyment. At present we have well over 170 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We make our collections and programmes available to all. We operate the world’s largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future by anyone, anywhere.
For further information and to apply, please visit here quoting vacancy ref: 03363.
