Informatics Digital Humanities Specialist

Job Purpose 

The Digital Humanities Specialist is responsible for supporting the migration of multiple humanities collections databases, multimedia, and content into a centralized collections management system. This position will work directly with curators and collections staff from various departments (Library, Archives, Archaeology, Ethnology, and Registration) to assist with developing and implementing data standards, migrating data to the new system, and helping to guide the development of a consolidated online collections and knowledge platform to provide access and interpretation of these collections for local communities, scholars, educators and the public.  

Duties and Responsibilities 

• Work directly with collections management staff across humanities collections to understand existing data management needs, data standards, processes, and workflows. 

• Serve as the primary liaison between humanities collections and informatics staff to help standardize data models across departments in EMu. 
• Provide informed feedback to the Informatics team on user needs, database issues, and feature requests. 
• Help develop new cataloging routines specific to the EMu collections management system for data entry related to humanities collections. 
• Contribute to the improvement of data quality for humanities collections records.  
• Implement metadata standards and vocabulary management based on collection type; work towards standardizing agents, geography, taxonomy, and other authority files across all collections. 

• Collaborate on special projects and digital preservation and research initiatives with informatics, curatorial, registrar, legal, and other museum departments. 
• Assist with the review and organization of multimedia in various formats (text, image, audio, video, etc.) associated with humanities collections following best practices associated with each format. 
• Help develop and implement data entry policies related to copyright and intellectual property rights from complete open access to protected access for cultural collections. 
• Under the direction of humanities curators, apply Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Institution notices to collections records for the protection of Indigenous knowledge.  
• Train staff to carry out newly established workflows with digitized and born-digital content, and ensure the ongoing quality of this work. 

• Create and maintain documentation and training materials for data entry in EMu.  
• Perform user surveys and gather requirements for the development of a new online collections platform. 
• Perform other duties, as assigned, to accomplish the goals of the Museum. 

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities, History, Art, Ethnology, Library Science, Museum Studies, or other related field.  
• 2+ years of experience with museum, library, and/or archival collections. 
• Experience working in a cultural institution preferred. 
• Knowledge of Hawaiian language, history, and culture preferred. 

• Experience working with collections management systems, Axiell EMu preferred. 
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly in writing and verbally. 
• Excellent interpersonal, time management, and organizational skills; ability to work effectively as part of a team and independently. 
• Experience working with data standards and ability to implement controlled vocabularies and standard thesauri required. 
• Familiarity with current cataloging best practices and standards, including CCO, CDWA, AAT, ULAN, ISAD(G), EAD, and other protocols as needed. 

• Ability to work with a diverse group of people, with differing levels of technological abilities, at varying levels in the organization, with different areas of expertise, and different working styles. 

Other Requirements 

• Flexibility in working hours, as some evening and weekend work is required. 

• Good attendance. 
• Detail-oriented. 

Direct Reports 

None. 

Working Conditions 

Occasional evening and weekend work required.