The Academy Film Archive, together with a consortium of major U.S. film institutions, has undertaken the multi-year project In Frame: Centering the Underrepresented in Moving Image Archives. The project will provide open access to a database of filmmakers and films across broad areas of focus related to ability, ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, and social and cultural identities.

On behalf of the consortium, the Academy Film Archive seeks an Index Development Analyst who will research, model, and propose indexing strategies for thousands of descriptive terms gathered from quotations in published texts about films and filmmakers. You will also propose an authority control strategy for film titles and filmmaker names.

This is a part-time, limited term position in Los Angeles or New York through July 31, 2022.

Responsibilities:

• Research and present three to four distinct approaches to creating an index for the dataset.
• Propose timelines and budgets for implementing each model, specifying labor costs and any technological needs to ensure their long-term sustainability.
• Analyze the relationship of In Frame’s dataset to existing vocabularies and ontologies, such as Wikidata, id.loc.gov, and Getty Vocabularies.
• Develop a name and title authority control strategy, considering universal identifiers of names and titles (such as EIDR, LCNAF, and VIAF) that will facilitate widespread access by multiple film and cultural heritage institutions.
• Participate in preliminary discussions about a shared digital platform that will eventually allow peer film institutions to freely download and upload metadata into their Content Management Systems.
• Interact with consortium working groups, community consultants, and project staff members to research, present, and test index models.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Moving Image Archiving or Library and Information Science.
• 5+ years of professional cataloging experience, specifically in library and archive settings and relevant to moving image materials.
• Knowledge of and interest in film and film studies.
• Demonstrated knowledge of and a vested interest in cultural equity and inclusion.
• Extensive understanding of and experience creating and using controlled vocabularies for both cataloging and retrieval.
• Detailed knowledge of various types of controlled vocabularies including subject headings, authority files and thesauri; extensive experience with taxonomies with hierarchical structures of terms.
• User-centered approach to index design and implementation.
• Experience working with relational databases.
• Familiarity with Airtable preferred.
• Experience with Linked Open data preferred.
• Ability to work independently and produce clear written reports of research results as well as collaboratively with individuals and groups across the organization.

If hired, we require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, unless a medical or religious accommodation is needed as determined on a case by case basis.