Born-Digital Strategist, IS-1420-12

Born-Digital Strategist, IS-1420-12

Application Deadline: 2 November 2026

Department: Archives of American Art

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Washington, DC

Compensation: $102,415 - $133,142 / year

Description

OPEN DATE: October 19, 2026

CLOSING DATE: November 2, 2026 (This job will close once 150 applications are received which may be sooner than the closing date.)

POSITION TYPE: Trust Fund

APPOINTMENT TYPE: Temporary, NTE 5 years

SCHEDULE: Full Time

DUTY LOCATION: Washington, DC

Position sensitivity and risk:Non-sensitive (NS)/Low Risk

Who May Apply:
Open to all qualified applicants

OVERVIEW

This position is located in the Digital Operations and Strategy Department at the Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution's Office of the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture. The Archives collects, preserves, and makes available primary source materials documenting the history of American art and artists. With a collection of more than 30 million items, the Archives is the largest and most widely used resource in the world on the history of American art.

The Born-Digital Strategist advances the Archives of American Art's born-digital program by developing strategies, policies, procedures, and workflows for acquiring, processing, preserving, and providing access to born-digital collections. Born-digital materials are created and maintained originally in digital form rather than digitized from physical or analog sources. Examples include documents, images, audiovisual recordings, databases, websites, and other complex digital resources.

Working within established program objectives and professional standards, the Born-Digital Strategist independently implements, evaluates, and improves methods and workflows for complex and evolving born-digital materials. The position serves as a specialist within the Archives and collaborates across the Smithsonian and the broader gallery, library, archive, and museum communities to strengthen long-term stewardship and access.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Born-Digital Strategist develops and advances the Archives' born-digital archival program while directly carrying out and evaluating the professional archival work needed to acquire, process, preserve, and provide access to born-digital collections, including email, databases, audiovisual media, websites, and other complex, interactive, or networked content.

• Develops and recommends goals, priorities, standards, policies, procedures, and workflows for born-digital stewardship.
• Conducts research and assessments to identify gaps, risks, and opportunities in born-digital practices and recommends solutions.
• Initiates and coordinates pilot initiatives and complex projects to develop, test, and implement new approaches for managing large-scale and structurally complex born-digital collections.
• Defines functional requirements for digital archival systems and tools, evaluates available technologies, and coordinates the acquisition and implementation of solutions that support program needs in collaboration with Archives and Smithsonian colleagues.
• Coordinates with Smithsonian offices, technical staff, and external partners to align archival requirements with digital infrastructure planning and development.

Develops and implements sustainable digital preservation and lifecycle management practices, including scalable workflows that reflect professional standards and evolving technologies and document transformations or interventions introduced through AI tools or automated processes.

• Applies digital preservation standards and practices, including risk assessment, format management, storage, file characterization, documentation, and data integrity monitoring.
• Assesses risks such as technological obsolescence, media degradation, and system dependencies and implements appropriate mitigation strategies.
• Evaluates, selects, and applies preservation tools, systems, and infrastructure for normalization, migration, storage, and documentation.
• Maintains intellectual and technical control of born-digital holdings through metadata and documentation that support long-term access and authenticity.

Coordinates and performs professional archival work involving the acquisition and accessioning of born-digital materials and develops and implements approaches for their transfer, ingest, documentation, stabilization, and initial management.

• Develops and improves procedures for the appraisal, selection, and acquisition of born-digital collections in alignment with archival principles, institutional collecting priorities, and professional standards.
• Works with donors, creators, curators, and institutional partners to arrange secure transfer and documentation of born-digital materials, provides professional guidance on appropriate transfer practices, and follows established rights-management policies.
• Coordinates and performs the transfer, accessioning, description, stabilization, and initial management of born-digital materials. Evaluates appropriate tools and methods, including automation and workflow standardization, to support scalable and reliable acquisition and ingest.
• Prepares and stabilizes digital files and associated metadata for ingest, documents accessioning actions, and maintains the authenticity, integrity, and chain of custody of born-digital materials throughout acquisition and accessioning.
• Documents creation context and provenance, including information about AI-generated or AI-assisted content, tools, and processes that may affect appraisal, authenticity, transfer, or future stewardship.

Provides subject-matter expertise and performs archival work related to the processing, arrangement, description, access, and use of born-digital materials in collaboration with Archives staff to support intellectual control, discoverability, and meaningful use.

• Works with curators, archivists, and technical staff to prepare and deliver born-digital collections through online platforms and other access environments.
• Resolves processing and description challenges involving large datasets, multimedia content, and dynamic or interactive resources.
• Collaborates with Archives processing staff, collection donors, and other stakeholders to organize and describe born-digital collections using appropriate metadata standards, descriptive practices, and collection management systems.
• Establishes and refines access procedures for researcher-requested born-digital materials in collaboration with Reference Services and collection donors. These procedures support researcher needs while meeting archival, technical, legal, and ethical requirements.
• Uses archival analysis and professional judgment to assess and document how AI-generated or AI-assisted content affects the context, authenticity, and interpretation of archival materials.

Collaborates with colleagues and external stakeholders to advance born-digital archival practices, strengthen stewardship and access, and share knowledge across the profession.

• Builds and maintains partnerships with Archives staff, Smithsonian colleagues, donors, creators, researchers, and external organizations.
• Develops and contributes to the design and delivery of convenings, workshops, symposia, and other knowledge-sharing activities addressing emerging challenges and opportunities in born-digital archives.
• Develops publications, guidance, and other documentation that share best practices, lessons learned, and program outcomes with internal and external audiences.
• Uses insights from collaboration, convenings, and professional engagement to inform and refine program strategies, workflows, and priorities.
• Represents the Archives in professional communities, initiatives, and collaborations related to born-digital archival work.
• Provides staff and external stakeholders with guidance and training on born-digital practices, tools, and workflows.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

Applicants must meet the basic qualification requirements for the Archivist Series, 1420, through one of the following paths: a bachelor's degree in archival science; a bachelor's degree with a major that includes 18 semester hours in archival science, history, and/or political science or government, plus 12 semester hours in one or any combination of archival science, history, American civilization, economics, political science, public administration, or government; or a combination of education and experience that includes at least 30 semester hours of the coursework described above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.

For this position, "archival science" may include coursework in archival studies and archives and records management; library and information science, information management, computer science, and related information sciences; digital curation, digital humanities, data curation, research data management, and digital preservation; museum studies and public history; or media preservation and audiovisual archiving. Coursework in these or closely related fields must be substantially relevant to archival principles, methods, appraisal, preservation, access, stewardship, metadata, digital forensics, or lifecycle management of archival or digital materials. Qualifying semester hours may combine undergraduate and graduate coursework.

Professional experience must have been in archival science or a directly related field, such as history, and must have involved the collection, appraisal, analysis, or synthesis of information with artistic, historical, or archival value.

Applicants must also have the knowledge and experience required to perform complex born-digital archival work, including the application of professional archival principles, theories, standards, and practices used with born-digital and traditional archival materials.

• Knowledge of digital preservation principles, standards, practices, and lifecycle approaches for the acquisition, ingest, management, processing, preservation, and long-term accessibility of born-digital archival materials.
• Knowledge of digital archival technologies, tools, systems, metadata practices, and supporting infrastructure used to manage complex and evolving digital formats, including email, databases, audiovisual materials, websites, datasets, and interactive or networked content.
• Skill in analyzing complex born-digital archival collections and applying professional judgment to determine appropriate methods for appraisal, acquisition, preservation, processing, description, and access.
• Skill in evaluating, selecting, applying, and adapting digital preservation tools, systems, methods, and workflows to address complex archival requirements and evolving technologies.
• Skill in explaining complex archival and technical information clearly and providing guidance to archivists, curators, technical specialists, donors, researchers, institutional partners, and other stakeholders.
• Skill in planning and coordinating complex archival projects and collaborating effectively with multidisciplinary staff and external partners.

Education completed outside the United States must be deemed equivalent to higher education programs of U.S. Institutions by an organization that specializes in the interpretation of foreign educational credentials. This documentation is the responsibility of the applicant and should be included as part of your application package.

Any false statement in your application may result in rejection of your application and may also result in termination after employment begins.

Required Application Materials

Required application materials include a resume and a cover letter describing the applicant's experience with born-digital archival work, digital preservation, and collaborative archival projects, along with any additional materials specified by Smithsonian Human Resources.

Resumes should include a description of your paid and non-paid work experience that is related to this job; starting and ending dates of job (month and year); and average number of hours worked per week.

What To Expect Next: Once the vacancy announcement closes, a review of your resume will be compared against the qualification and experience requirements related to this job. After review of applicant resumes is complete, qualified candidates will be referred to the hiring manager.

Relocation expenses are not paid.