Post-Doc Fellow, University of Alberta
« Torna all'elenco
Inserito il 28/12/2013
from digitalhumanities.org
University of Alberta Libraries
CLIR/DLF Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation and Web Archives
University of Alberta Libraries (UAL) in cooperation with the Humanities Computing Program (HuCo) seeks a postdoctoral fellow to engage in the research, planning, creation and implementation of tools and services related to web archives. Working with UAL, Humanities Computing, and other interested partners, this fellowship position will be responsible for identifying and investigating potential use cases for digital scholarship made possible using web archives, and for identifying the requirements that follow from better understanding the need for improved access and manipulation of the data.
Academic libraries are awakening to the value of web archives as an important component of cultural and scholarly record. However, the challenges of discovery, access and utility of these collections as they affect the needs of the researchers and end users they wish to serve is a relatively young field of study. While interest in web archives is growing, partly as a result of the impermanence readily observed with the web, many researchers remain unaware of the existence of national and institutional web archives. Those who are aware and attuned to web archiving programs, e.g. Humanities Computing communities, now look to the library as a partner. Libraries must enable better access to the data in order to satisfy the computational demands of digital scholarship.
Duties & Responsibilities
Identify existing research about the scholarly use of web archives in order to help the Libraries better understand weaknesses, gaps, and opportunities in the current research environment
Examine and make recommendations around web archive-related service design addressing the needs of research communities, as well as other audiences, e.g. undergraduates, non-academic audiences
Identify opportunities for the development of tools and services that would better support using web archived data captured in WARCs for research, with a specific focus on serving the needs of the digital humanities scholar
Collaborate with Digital Initiatives and Collections teams on the development of collections and supporting functions, e.g. metadata that would better address scholarly requirements; enabling participatory collection building and the use/integration of archiving tools by campus research teams
Research approaches for archiving online game culture, including the possibility of crowdsourcing the gathering of Canadian game culture documents; collaborate with a PhD candidate funded to work on game archiving
Work with UAL to better communicate the goals and value of the web archiving program and its available collections to prospective audiences
Develop tools and means to support scholarly interactions with web archived content, e.g. data mining, visualization, content analysis, topic modelling
Support the overall work of the Libraries as it looks to scale web archiving collections activity to levels that will satisfy DH and other communities
Required Qualification
PhD in relevant areas of study, e.g. Library and Information Science, Archival Studies, Computing Science, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Desired Qualifications
Background in DH-related research, computing, or evidence of interest/experience with digital research technologies and platforms
Knowledge and experience of relevant programming languages and scripts
Fundamental skills in designing and conducting research
Excellent project management and interpersonal communication skills
Ability to work both independently and with teams
Strong curiosity and passion for digital preservation, linked data, visualization, or similar areas of interest
Role
The fellow will report directly to the Digital Initiatives Coordinator, Libraries, and be a member of the Digital Initiatives unit.
The fellow should expect to be an active contributor to a variety of relevant teams, and will be partnering with researchers in the Humanities Computing Program to support research projects using web archives.
Professional Development Support
The fellow may be eligible to receive local support for professional development and research sharing activities in addition to the CLIR/DLF program support.
Salary
Salary will be the CAD equivalent of $60,000 USD at time of appointment.
