Digitisation Team Leader (Access)

Salary: £29,100 pro rata per annum

IWM Duxford is seeking a Digitisation Team Leader (Access). 

The digitisation team converts IWM’s analogue collections to enable them to be accessed (for example through collections search) and preserved digitally. The team includes technicians, contract or fee paid staff and volunteers and, in addition, work is also contracted out to third-party suppliers. In all instances the team deliver to internal customers who then connect content with our audiences.

The digitisation team is grouped by why (access or preservation) we digitise the collection and the type of collections that we work to digitise (still or time-based media).

Our access team deliver on-demand requests to enable the collection to be used in our public, learning and commercial programmes. Our preservation team will digitise our most vulnerable assets now, as many of the assets will no longer be in good enough condition to digitise in five years’ time. This project is called Digital Futures.

The Digitisation Team Leader (Access) is a specialist leading a team. The team includes technicians, contract or fee paid staff and volunteers. Third-party digitisation is managed by the Digitisation Manager.

You will oversee digitisation on-demand requests and access projects for our customers and public programmes. You will contribute to these projects at stakeholder level as a supplier at project meetings to inform decision making and to ensure progress daily.

You will have skills in digital photographic digitisation and restoration (as this will form most of your team’s work) and be sufficiently skilled in time-based media digitisation to support the whole team.

Film and video material form some of the most vulnerable assets IWM administer, as such you will be working in a laboratory environment where H&S considerations are paramount.

You will be adept at using a wide range of high-end capture hardware and are intuitive in the use of various software packages. Computer work is undertaken on both Apple Mac and PC machines with high quality calibrated screens in a colour managed environment. A high level of concentration and attention to detail is a pre-requisite as are an eye and ear for historic detail. You will ensure staff working in this area support each other with learning and keep abreast of current developments.

Minimum qualifications

Knowledge & qualification in relevant subject (HNC/HND/NVQ4 or similar)

Skills and experience required

Highly developed scanning and camera capture skills with good understanding of imagery, colour management and digital restoration.

Excellent management skills (for example, resolution of issues, team development and completion of management so that everyone understands their targets, project progress and resource levels).

Sufficiently skilled in photographic and paper medias to manage others (e.g. to recommend solutions to issues that the team face and routing work through the best digitisation process).

Proven ability to manage and meet deadlines, balancing the delivery of a project with a variable on demand workload.

Able to undertake management checks to maintain the standards set out in the Museum’s systems for collections care, management and digitisation having rapidly assimilated policy, procedure and systems changes.

Highly computer literate:

• Able to operate digitisation hardware and software to do basic troubleshooting of IT equipment (hardware and software) and maintain a colour managed environment. Skilled to the level where you can resolve operational problems and work with other colleagues in Collections Development & Information and Information Technology, as necessary, to do so.
• Operation of a database or cataloguing software
• Broad knowledge of timed-based media file formats
• Understanding of digital asset workflow and ingest procedures at IWM (including moving large volumes of data, working with servers)
• Appreciation of the differences between preservation and access variants, and transcoding.
• Familiarity with high-end workstations and storage arrays

For full details including how to apply, click here. 

The closing date for this position is 10/02/2021 at 09:00