Digital Archives Specialist

Job Purpose

The Digital Archives Specialist is responsible for the administration, preservation, integrity, and accessibility of MBZUAI’s born-digital and digitized materials of enduring historical and research value. Reporting to the Head of Art, Archives, and Special Collections, the role includes responsibility for designing, documenting, and maintaining workflows for the appraisal, transfer, arrangement, description, and preservation of digital material in accordance with institutional policies and international archival standards. The position administers digital cataloguing systems, metadata governance, and digital preservation processes to safeguard the authenticity and usability of MBZUAI’s institutional memory. The role collaborates with the Records Management Specialist on shared systems while maintaining a clear distinction between archival preservation of materials of enduring value and operational records governance functions.

Key Responsibilities

Digital Preservation & Integrity

• Implement and maintain digital preservation strategies to ensure long-term accessibility and authenticity of digital archival materials, including web content and multimedia formats.
• Monitor digital integrity (fixity checks), file format sustainability, storage resilience and preservation protocols.

Cataloguing & Metadata Governance

• Implement and maintain metadata standards aligned with archival best practices.
• Ensure accurate indexing and classification within digital archival systems.

System Management & Optimization

• Co-Manage implementation and optimization of archival/collections management platforms (DAMS, ERMS), working closely with the Records Management Specialist.
• Collaborate with IT to ensure secure storage, backups, migration and system performance.
• Design and maintain structured ingest workflows.
• Identify opportunities for AI-enabled cataloguing, search optimization, and workflow automation, for review and approval by Head.
• Provide training and guidance to staff on digital archival systems.

Appraisal, Outreach and Engagement

• Work with the Head to identify, appraise, and ingest digital materials of continuing historical and research significance.
• Support departmental and project-based archival initiatives that document MBZUAI’s institutional development and research impact.
• Engage academic, research, and administrative departments to support identification of materials suitable for permanent archival preservation in alignment with departmental collecting policy.
• Coordinate with the Records Management Specialist to maintain clear separation between operational records governance and long-term archival preservation, and with the Library on published materials.

Digitization Projects

• Support digitization initiatives for historical physical materials in coordination with the Collections Manager and under departmental priorities.
• Support quality control and proper metadata tagging for digitized assets.

Compliance & Governance

• Ensure digital archival practices comply with national and international standards.
• Maintain secure access controls and confidentiality protocols.
• Document technical procedures and maintain system documentation to support transparency, continuity, and auditability of digital preservation processes.

Research & Access Support

• Develop access frameworks that balance research use, privacy, intellectual property, and institutional sensitivity.
• Provide technical guidance to researchers accessing digital archival materials.

Other Duties

Perform all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.

Academic Qualifications

A Bachelor’s degree in Archival Studies, Library and Information Science, Information Systems, Digital Humanities, or related field.

Professional Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 6-8 years’ experience in digital archives, digital preservation or institutional repository management.
• Demonstrated experience managing digital asset management or records management systems.
• Strong understanding of metadata standards and digital preservation principles.
• Experience working with diverse digital file formats and preservation challenges, including format validation, digital forensics and migration planning.

Preferred

• Experience in higher education or research-intensive institutions.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled archival technologies and automation tools.
• Knowledge of UAE regulatory frameworks related to records governance e.g. PII