McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

(position filled)

Postdoctoral Position in Digital Humanities
Under the auspices of The Council on Library and Information Resources

McMaster University Library offers a CLIR post-doctoral Fellowship (two years duration) for a humanities scholar (history, religious studies, politics, Jewish or Holocaust studies, etc.). The position will be based in the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections. The collections in the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections support teaching and research in a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. (see http://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/). In the promotion of these collections for educational purposes, McMaster University has embarked upon a series of thematic, interactive websites; the latest website of this nature is Peace and War in the 20th Century (see http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca).

The Fellow will act as the coordinator of a research team that focuses on the development of a thematic, interactive virtual research environment devoted to the resistance movements in Europe during World War II, underground literature, Nazi propaganda, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. More than a website, this new resource will provide access to the collections while encouraging debate, dialogue and discovery through web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis. Through the work on this project the research fellow will provide valuable insight into how research is conducted and new knowledge discovered through emerging web technologies. More importantly, working together with librarians, archivists and fellow researchers, this fellow will play a pivotal role in the development of collaborative research output in the area of Holocaust and resistance studies.

McMaster University Library has recently acquired several large collections pertaining to these subject areas. Although applicants from the broad range of humanities fields will be considered, we particularly encourage applications from scholars with an appropriate background, an interest in digital applications, and a working knowledge of European languages. The Fellow will collaborate with library and archival staff, students, and faculty at McMaster University and elsewhere. A team of archivists, librarians, web designers, technicians, faculty, and students will document this project extensively, using web 2.0 technology and state-of-the-art digital software (images, themes, case studies, publicity, metadata compliant with Dublin Core standards, Drupal software, etc.). We believe that this dynamic website will be used widely in the classroom and by the educated public. The site will also promote and highlight these primary resources for research purposes for many disciplines in the academic curriculum.

The CLIR fellowship is designed to give an ambitious and focused recent Ph.D. recipient in the humanities a unique and broad opportunity to develop as an information professional and scholar.

Environment

The McMaster University Library and the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections
McMaster University Library is a major research library with more than 2 million books, 20,000 print and electronic journal titles, and an additional 20,000 e-resources. In 2008 McMaster University Library won the prestigious Excellence in Academic Libraries Award, the first Canadian academic library to receive the award, granted yearly by the Association of College and Research Libraries in the United States.

The Division of Archives and Research Collections, located in Mills Memorial Library on the McMaster University campus, has collected archives and rare books in diverse fields since 1939. We house 126,000 rare books, 3,635 metres of archives, 4,700 periodicals, 12,700 microforms, and 3,375 antiquarian maps. The Cultural Property and Export Review Board has designated the Division as a category A institution for certifiable cultural property. We have collection mandates for subjects such as peace and war, music, Canadian literature, Canadian social history, etc. We have a staff of 3 archivists, 2 librarian/archivists, 1 archival assistant, 1 conservator, and 4 student assistants. In addition to our own staff, we have associate members from other Library departments: the Digital Strategies Librarian, the Metadata Librarian, and digital and technical support staff. Our main storage facility is temperature-and-humidity controlled. We are one of the few repositories in Canada with a conservation lab. Our fonds and collection descriptions are listed and described at the Library’s online catalogue, on our own websites, and on ARCHEION (and CAIN) with dynamic links to finding aids at our websites. A digital studio is located on the fifth floor of Mills Library. Digital collections can be viewed at the Digital Collections website at http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca/ In 2002 the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections received the Institutional Award from the Archives Association of Ontario.

Salary: $45,000 Canadian annually plus applicable benefit program.