"University Archivist"

The University of California, Riverside (UCR) seeks a dynamic and forward-thinking University Archivist to lead a comprehensive, inclusive, and community-engaged archival program. This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the documentation of UCR's institutional history by preserving the voices, experiences, and contributions of its diverse campus community.

Working as a member of the highly collaborative Special Collections & University Archives team, the University Archivist will develop and implement strategies to proactively document significant events, individuals, and movements that have shaped the university. They will play a critical role in expanding the archival record by seeking out and acquiring records from archivally underrepresented groups, student organizations, and faculty, while also supporting informed decision-making around preservation and access to university-generated content. The University Archivist plays a critical role in ensuring that UCR's institutional memory is comprehensive, inclusive, and accessible.

Located an hour's drive to the east of Los Angeles, an hour west of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, an hour east of ocean beaches, ninety minutes north of San Diego, and an hour south of mountain ski resorts, UCR is located in an area of dramatic landscapes and rich cultural traditions. The University is a dynamic, aggressively developing land grant research institution dedicated to preparing its diverse student body to be successful competitors in the world marketplace of ideas.

Over the past few years, UCR has accumulated numerous accolades for its achievements. In 2022, it received the following rankings: No. 1 public university in the U.S. for social mobility four years in a row - U.S. News & World Report; No. 1 for Hispanic enrollment among selective universities - Urban Institute; No. 2 in the country for financial aid - Business Insider; No. 2 in Entomology research in the world - Center for World University Rankings; No. 3 in Hispanic STEM graduates in the nation - National Science Foundation; No. 4 for Pell Grant student performance - Washington Monthly; No. 9 among public universities for sustainability - Princeton Review; No. 11 most diverse medical school - U.S. News; Top 12 public university - Forbes "America's Best Value Colleges"; No. 14 public university - CNBC "Colleges That Pay Off the Most"; No. 20 public university - Princeton Review Best Schools for Making a Public Impact; No. 31 in the world in plant and animal sciences - U.S. News & World Report. In addition, it has attracted faculty with some of the highest academic honors, including: 2 Nobel Prize Winners; 2 Guggenheim Awards; 4 UC University Professorships; 11 Fulbright Scholars; 28 National Academies Members.

The UCR Library is a critical partner in preparing UCR's students to be globally competitive while simultaneously preparing them to be transformative leaders in the Inland Empire and beyond. The mission of the UCR Library is no less than to bring the world's information resources to the UCR community and to ensure that UCR students, faculty, and staff have the skills to fully exploit those resources to change the world for the better.

The UCR Library is a team of intensely collaborative, forward-thinking colleagues dedicated to providing exemplary services to our students, faculty, and community members in a rapidly evolving information environment. The successful candidate will be technologically-sophisticated; committed to problem-solving in local, regional, national, and international arenas; able to develop innovative solutions to complex problems; and a dynamic and effective leader.

The UCR Library is comprised of two facilities housing more than 4,900,000 volumes, 1,740,000 electronic books, 120,000 print and electronic journals, and 2,300,000 microforms. The Library provides services to more than 27,000 students and nearly 2,000 faculty and other academics in an institutional environment planning for and experiencing extensive growth. The successful candidate will join an enthusiastic staff of 100, including 36 FTE librarians and 65 FTE staff personnel as well as students, in building a research library of excellence within a dynamic and diverse university ranked among the top 50 in the nation. The UCR Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Among the unique collections of the UCR Library is the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Water Resources Collections & Archives, the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian, the Paul Chou Collection of Chinese history and culture, the George Brown Papers, the Tomas Rivera Papers, and the Inland Empire Memories Initiative. Information about the UCR Library is available at http://library.ucr.edu.

The UCR Library is an integral part of the University of California library system. With collections totaling 40.8 million volumes, including 4.3 million digitized contents contributed to HathiTrust, UC's more than 100 libraries are surpassed in size on the American continent only by the Library of Congress collection. In addition, UC's California Digital Library (CDL) provides the core of the University's digital collections. CDL also assists UC to share resources and holdings more effectively, and provides leadership in applying technology to the development of library collections and services. Organizationally situated within the UC Office of the President, the CDL operates in close collaboration with all UC campuses and their libraries.

Responsibilities: Reporting to the Director of Special Collections and University Archives, the University Archivist is responsible for providing leadership in the selection, transfer, description, preservation and access of official University Records of enduring value. Creates collaborative alliances across the campus between the University Archives and University administrative units, colleges, schools, and academic departments to facilitate routine transfer of records to the University Archives as appropriate; Serves as the primary advocate and representative of the University Archives to the University community and to external organizations and individuals; Provides research assistance and instruction to internal and external constituents in this area, and will promote the visibility and use of the University Archives through teaching, exhibits, programming, and other means, independently and in collaboration with Departmental staff; Collaborates with the Director of Special Collections and University Archives, to provide a framework and best practices for the University's records retention needs; Processes existing and incoming archival materials using best practices and current national standards, describing collections, and creating finding aids and related records in ArchivesSpace, the department's archival management system, as appropriate; Projects growth rates of the University Archives collections and communicates those effectively with departmental and library leadership to facilitate long-term collections space planning; Uploads completed finding aids to online public access catalogs including consortial online databases, such as the Online Archive of California, in coordination with the Acquisitions, Description, and Discovery services staff; Integrates digital collections with finding aids and related records, as appropriate, in coordination with Digitization Services Steering Committee; Raises public awareness of newly processed collections through social media, web-based platforms, and other outlets as appropriate; Collaborates with the Digitization Services Steering Committee to identify University Archives holdings that are candidates for digitization; Assists in developing resources to support class objectives that focus on University Archives; Collaborates with library and other campus resources to curate University history-centered exhibitions and to prepare University history-focused content for multiple outlets including social media and websites; In collaboration with UC Riverside faculty, staff and researchers, provides the necessary information, tools and services to assist them in making informed decisions regarding the preservation, reuse, archiving and sharing of the content created in the course of their teaching/learning, research and other scholarly activities while employed by UC Riverside; Participates in general administrative duties, library-wide activities, committees, special projects and library programs; represents the UCR Library on various University of California standing committees and ad-hoc groups.