Digital Preservation Programme:
Cambridge University Libraries have embarked on an exciting five-year Digital Preservation Programme to establish the new Digital Preservation Service.
Based at the main University Library, an exciting opportunity has come up for a Technical Analyst on the Programme. The Digital Preservation Programme is a ground-breaking first for the University Library and transformative, delivering the foundations for the management of digital collections for the future, with ambitious goals to achieve the best user experience and maximise the potential of precious digital collections in a long-term sustainable way.
The Digital Preservation Service will support digital collection materials from when they are acquired or created through to when they are accessed and used, to ensure that current and future readers can access and use materials of cultural and historic importance and of global significance. The Library's digital collection materials consist of digitised images created from print and physical artefacts, research publications and data, and born-digital archives, amongst others.
The scope of this Programme includes cloud-native and open-source services to underpin activities that ensure current and ongoing access to digital materials, as well as the implementation of additional tools that provide capabilities for the deposit of digital materials as well as search, discovery, access, and use.
About the Role:
The Technical Analyst is based within the Digital Preservation team, working as part of the wider Digital Preservation Programme team and with colleagues across the Library, liaising with heads of departments, operational staff, collections staff and academics.
The Technical Analyst will make a vital contribution to establishing services for digital collection materials, including a service to transfer data from handheld storage carriers. They will also help establish the CUL Digital Preservation Lab for carrying out this work as well as research into more-complex use cases, as well as prepare digital materials for ingest to a preservation workflow.
What You Will Need:
The successful candidate will have a wide-ranging technical skillset that includes:
• Knowledge and/or experience in understanding the risks and vulnerabilities of data and digital technologies.
• Conceptual understanding and knowledge of key challenges of digital preservation or relevant discipline (e.g., time-based media conservation, web archiving, digital forensics).
• Strong knowledge of digital formats and metadata.
• Willingness to engage with a range of stakeholders and work as part of a team to achieve common goals.