Audiovisual Digitisation Manager job at British Library Sound Archive

We have a vacancy for an Audiovisual Digitisation Engineer Manager at the British Library in London, managing and providing technical oversight of audiovisual digitisation projects, including the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme. This is a 2-year, full-time post.

The successful applicant will have excellent technical knowledge across historic and current audiovisual formats, a thorough grounding in archival principles as they apply to audiovisual materials and excellent people management and organisational skills. This is a fantastic opportunity to be part of a busy technical team preserving the national sound collection, and of the Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme working on the preservation and online publication of one of the largest collections of early twentieth century Middle Eastern sound recordings outside the region itself.

As our Audiovisual Digitisation Manager, you will be responsible for:

• Managing the work of in-house audiovisual transfer engineers and liaising with external digitisation service providers;
• Overseeing public and staff requests for audiovisual digitisation;
• Training staff;
• Progressing software development projects relating to audiovisual preservation;
• Overseeing internal and external digitisation and quality checking work done.

You will have excellent technical knowledge across historic and current audiovisual formats, including knowledge of audio and video digitisation and digital file and metadata creation and management, a thorough grounding in archival principles as they apply to audiovisual materials and excellent people management and organisational skills.

As one of the world’s great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation’s intellectual memory for the future. At present we have well over 150 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We operate the world’s largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future.

In return we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits. Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes 26.6% (this may be higher dependant on grade). Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.