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Job Description and Person Specificationselection Criteria DEPARTMENT NAME Job description and selection criteria Job title Archives Assistant (Graduate Trainee) Division Academic Services and University Collections (ASUC) Department Bodleian Libraries Location University Archives, Special Collections, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford Grade and salary Grade 3: £18,031 - £20,781 per annum Hours Full time (36.5 hours per week) Contract type Fixed-term from 1 September 2015 to 7 September 2016 Reporting to Simon Bailey, Keeper of the Archives Vacancy reference 117252 Additional This post requires Disclosure Scotland and financial background information checks Closing date Midday on 10 April 2015 Introduction The University The University of Oxford is a complex and stimulating organisation, which enjoys an international reputation as a world-class centre of excellence in research and teaching. It employs over 10,000 staff and has a student population of over 22,000. Most staff are directly appointed and managed by one of the University’s 130 departments or other units within a highly devolved operational structure - this includes over 6,500 ‘academic-related’ staff (postgraduate research, computing, senior library, and administrative staff) and over 2,700 ‘support’ staff (including clerical, library, technical, and manual staff). There are also over 1,600 academic staff (professors, readers, lecturers), whose appointments are in the main overseen by a combination of broader divisional and local faculty board/departmental structures. Academics are generally all also employed by one of the 38 constituent colleges of the University as well as by the central University itself. Our annual income in 2012/13 was £1,086.9m. Oxford is one of Europe's most innovative and entrepreneurial universities: income from external research contracts exceeds £436.8m p.a., and more than 80 spin-off companies have been created. For more information please visit www.ox.ac.uk/staff/about_the_university.html Academic Services and University Collections The Academic Services and University Collections (ASUC) group includes the providers of the major academic services to the divisions, and also departments with responsibilities including, but extending beyond, the immediate teaching and research needs of the University. The collections embodied within these departments are an essential part of the University’s wider nature and mission. They are part of its heritage as the country’s oldest University and now form a resource of national and international importance for teaching, research and cultural life; they also make a major contribution to the University’s outreach and access missions. For more information please visit: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/asuc/ 2 The Bodleian Libraries The University of Oxford’s many libraries contain the largest and most diverse collections for the support of teaching and research in any institution of higher education in the United Kingdom. Its library holdings as a whole are world-class. Because its principal library, the Bodleian, has been in effect a library of legal deposit for almost 400 years, members of the University and scholars from far and wide have a reasonable expectation of satisfying a very high proportion of their library needs somewhere within Oxford’s libraries. The libraries, which together form Bodleian Libraries, contain more than 10 million volumes; and, if periodical parts are included, Bodleian Libraries adds to stock an average of well over 1000 items per day throughout the year. A large proportion of the library stock will be preserved in perpetuity and a significant percentage of the legal deposit intake forms a part of the national printed archive. In addition to its vast print and archival collections, Bodleian Libraries offers access to over 60,000 e-journals and over 900 licensed electronic databases and reference works. The library service is currently also significantly extending its e-book collection to support both learning and research. For more information please visit: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ The University Archives The function of the Archives is to select, preserve and make available for administrative or research purposes the documentary records of the University and its departments. Dating from 1214 to the present, these include charters, statutes and title deeds; records of the University's legislative and executive bodies (for example, Congregation, Convocation and Hebdomadal Council); financial and central administrative records; records of students; records of University delegacies and committees; records of the Chancellor's Court; and departmental and faculty records. The University Archives does not contain any college records, which remain the responsibility of the individual colleges, or personal papers of individual members of the University, which are collected by a different section within the Department of Special Collections in the Bodleian Library. Some large departments of the University, such as the Bodleian Library itself and the University Press, manage their own archives. Although physically based in the old Bodleian Library since 1634, the Archives was a separate University department until 2010 when it became a unit within the Library’s Department of Special Collections. It now reports to the Keeper of Special Collections (Dr Chris Fletcher). Apart from the post of Archives Assistant now advertised, the Archives has a full-time equivalent staff of 2: the Keeper of the Archives (Simon Bailey) and the Assistant Keeper, currently split into two half time posts held by Alice Millea and Anna Petre. The one year post of Archives Assistant has for more than 20 years been held by a graduate gaining experience before taking a postgraduate course in archives administration. There is also a part time (40%) post of Conservator, based in the Bodleian Libraries Department of Conservation and Collection Care,that is devoted to work on Archives material. 3 Most of the current work in the Archives is concerned with the administration and use of late 19th and 20th century material; the great majority of the holdings, probably more than 90%, are from this period and most of the enquiries received and the research undertaken relate to 19th and 20th century topics and individuals. All of the medieval records of the University have been published, chiefly by the Oxford Historical Society. Some post-medieval records are in Latin. Location The Archives office is situated on the top floor of the Tower of the Five Orders (now part of the old Bodleian Library) and is reached from the Library’s Upper Reading Room by a stone spiral staircase of approximately 65 steps. The older documents are stored there and on the floor below. A larger amount (approximately 75% of the total holdings of the Archives) is currently stored in the basement of the Examination Schools in the High Street but it is expected that this will be moved to the Weston Library in May and June 2015. The Bodleian Libraries have undertaken a major renovation of the building formerly known as the New Bodleian over the past three years; this reopened to users as the Weston Library in September 2014. Some other material is held in the Bodleian’s Book Storage Facility that the University has built in Swindon. It will regularly be necessary for members of staff to visit and work in the Archives’ storage area in the basement of the Weston Library, often on their own. Occasional visits are also made to the University's central offices and to academic departments. The Archives does not have its own reading room. Documents are transferred to the Rare Books and Manuscripts reading room in the Weston Library for the use of readers wishing to consult them and are the responsibility of reading room staff while they are there. For more information about the University Archives please visit: http://www.oua.ox.ac.uk 4 Job description Overview of the role The role of the Archives Assistant is to support the work of the Keeper and Assistant Keepers and to participate fully in the provision of an efficient service to users of the Archives. He or she manages and prioritises a varied workload on a day to day basis without close supervision Responsibilities/duties Answering written and telephone enquiries some of which require use and evaluation of complex sources; Overseeing and carrying out the various procedures involved in making Archives material available to researchers and administrative staff; this regularly includes transferring documents from storage locations to the Weston Library reading room when required and returning them after use. It is sometimes necessary to supervise users consulting documents in the Archives’ storage areas; Identifying, planning and configuring storage accommodation required in connection with new accessions and major moves of archival material; Arranging and describing modern records according to archival principles; Boxing, numbering, and labelling documents; Some reading room duties in the Weston Library (including occasional evenings until 7pm). These duties will include issuing items from the reserve, invigilation, and assisting readers with enquiries; Assisting with the general administration and housekeeping of the archives; Such other comparable duties as may be required by the Keeper or Head of Department. Some of these duties involve the lifting and carrying of heavy boxes and volumes. 5 Selection criteria Candidates for the post will be judged on the basis of the following criteria and should try to ensure that their application shows how they meet
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