Museum Curator

Job Title:  Curator

Location :  Dayton , OH 45428

Duties :

• Physical Maintenance of Artifacts

The candidate shall support the Curator in evaluation and acquisitions of three-dimensional historical artifacts, and provide input on gaps in the collections, and what may be unnecessary duplication. The candidate will conduct research on potential objects and present that information to the collections committee and will defer final acquisitions decisions to the Curator. As he will document and catalog artifacts following the NHVACM collections management plan.

• Planning and Arranging Storage Space

The candidate shall observe provenance, a standard museum practice, and consult the curator before attempting any rearrangement of collections space. The candidate shall inventory and prepare a recommendations report for large-scale movements and update locations in spreadsheets or a collections management system, and provide support in evaluating new hardware and software for the Museum.

• Handling Incoming Artifacts

The candidate shall process and handle incoming artifacts following museum best practices and standards, and appropriately document shipment, arrival condition, immediate requirements, and longer concerns, adding all arrivals to the database.

• Specialist Research Assistance

The candidate shall support the reference activity function by responding to inquiries made in person, letter, email, and telephone. The candidate also shall support reference requests and perform database searches, and provide extensive reference services periodically to satisfy high level special research projects with short deadlines. The candidate shall consult with the Chief Historian, Senior Archivist, and/or Curator.

• Maintaining Collection Records

The candidate will create reports on collections management efforts using the collections

management system and provide technical assistance to other VA employees regarding the management of three-dimensional object collections.

• Quality Assurance

The candidate shall maintain a log of reference requests detailing method of contact. The contractor shall maintain statistics on database activity.

Education & Qualifications:

• This position requires bachelor’s degree in history, museum studies or related field from an accredited institution; a master’s degree in museum studies is strongly preferred.
• Requires at least three years of experience in the management of museum collections.
• This work must include at least one year of experience accessioning, cataloging, and rehousing of three-dimensional objects.
• This work must include at least one year of experience accessioning, cataloging, and re-housing of three-dimensional objects.