Fast Facts

The University of California, Riverside seeks a University Archivist to lead a comprehensive archival program, ensuring the documentation of the university's diverse history and contributions.

Responsibilities: The University Archivist will document significant events, advocate for archival accessibility, collaborate with the university community, and manage archival collections.

Skills: Required skills include leadership in archival practices, knowledge of metadata standards, project management, and effective communication.

Qualifications: Preferred qualifications include a Master's degree in Library & Information Science, two years of relevant experience, and familiarity with digital preservation standards.

Location: The job is located in Riverside, California, USA.

Compensation: $72224 - $136895 / Annually

University Archivist

University of California Riverside

Position Overview

The University of California, Riverside (UCR) seeks a dynamic and forward-thinking University Archivist to lead a comprehensive, inclusive, and community-engaged archival program. This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the documentation of UCR's institutional history by preserving the voices, experiences, and contributions of its diverse campus community.

Working as a member of the highly collaborative Special Collections & University Archives team, the University Archivist will develop and implement strategies to proactively document significant events, individuals, and movements that have shaped the university. They will play a critical role in expanding the archival record by seeking out and acquiring records from archivally underrepresented groups, student organizations, and faculty, while also supporting informed decision-making around preservation and access to university-generated content. The University Archivist plays a critical role in ensuring that UCR's institutional memory is comprehensive, inclusive, and accessible.

Located an hour's drive to the east of Los Angeles, an hour west of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, an hour east of ocean beaches, ninety minutes north of San Diego, and an hour south of mountain ski resorts, UCR is located in an area of dramatic landscapes and rich cultural traditions. The University is a dynamic, aggressively developing land grant research institution dedicated to preparing its diverse student body to be successful competitors in the world marketplace of ideas.

Over the past few years, UCR has accumulated numerous accolades for its achievements. In 2022, it received the following rankings:

• No. 1 public university in the U.S. for social mobility four years in a row - U.S. News & World Report
• No. 1 for Hispanic enrollment among selective universities - Urban Institute
• No. 2 in the country for financial aid - Business Insider
• No. 2 in Entomology research in the world - Center for World University Rankings
• No. 3 in Hispanic STEM graduates in the nation - National Science Foundation
• No. 4 for Pell Grant student performance - Washington Monthly
• No. 9 among public universities for sustainability - Princeton Review
• No. 11 most diverse medical school - U.S. News
• Top 12 public university - Forbes "America's Best Value Colleges"
• No. 14 public university - CNBC "Colleges That Pay Off the Most"
• No. 20 public university - Princeton Review Best Schools for Making a Public Impact
• No. 31 in the world in plant and animal sciences - U.S. News & World Report In addition, it has attracted faculty with some of the highest academic honors, including:
• 2 Nobel Prize Winners
• 2 Guggenheim Awards
• 4 UC University Professorships
• 11 Fulbright Scholars
• 28 National Academies Members

The UCR Library is a critical partner in preparing UCR's students to be globally competitive while simultaneously preparing them to be transformative leaders in the Inland Empire and beyond. The mission of the UCR Library is no less than to bring the world's information resources to the UCR community and to ensure that UCR students, faculty, and staff have the skills to fully exploit those resources to change the world for the better.

The UCR Library is a team of intensely collaborative, forward-thinking colleagues dedicated to providing exemplary services to our students, faculty, and community members in a rapidly evolving information environment. The successful candidate will be technologically-sophisticated; committed to problem-solving in local, regional, national, and international arenas; able to develop innovative solutions to complex problems; and a dynamic and effective leader.

The UCR Library is comprised of two facilities housing more than 4,900,000 volumes, 1,740,000 electronic books, 120,000 print and electronic journals, and 2,300,000 microforms. The Library provides services to more than 27,000 students and nearly 2,000 faculty and other academics in an institutional environment planning for and experiencing extensive growth. The successful candidate will join an enthusiastic staff of 100, including 36 FTE librarians and 65 FTE staff personnel as well as students, in building a research library of excellence within a dynamic and diverse university ranked among the top 50 in the nation. The UCR Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Among the unique collections of the UCR Library is the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Water Resources Collections & Archives, the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian, the Paul Chou Collection of Chinese history and culture, the George Brown Papers, the Tomas Rivera Papers, and the Inland Empire Memories Initiative. Information about the UCR Library is available at http://library.ucr.edu .

The UCR Library is an integral part of the University of California library system. With collections totaling 40.8 million volumes, including 4.3 million digitized contents contributed to HathiTrust, UC's more than 100 libraries are surpassed in size on the American continent only by the Library of Congress collection. In addition, UC's California Digital Library (CDL) provides the core of the University's digital collections. CDL also assists UC to share resources and holdings more effectively, and provides leadership in applying technology to the development of library collections and services. Organizationally situated within the UC Office of the President, the CDL operates in close collaboration with all UC campuses and their libraries.

Responsibilities Reporting to the Director of Special Collections and University Archives, the University Archivist is responsible for providing leadership in the selection, transfer, description, preservation and access of official University Records of enduring value.

• Creates collaborative alliances across the campus between the University Archives and University administrative units, colleges, schools, and academic departments to facilitate routine transfer of records to the University Archives as appropriate;
• Serves as the primary advocate and representative of the University Archives to the University community and to external organizations and individuals;
• Provides research assistance and instruction to internal and external constituents in this area, and will promote the visibility and use of the University Archives through teaching, exhibits, programming, and other means, independently and in collaboration with Departmental staff;
• Collaborates with the Director of Special Collections and University Archives, to provide a framework and best practices for the University's records retention needs;
• Processes existing and incoming archival materials using best practices and current national standards, describing collections, and creating finding aids and related records in ArchivesSpace, the department's archival management system, as appropriate;
• Projects growth rates of the University Archives collections and communicates those effectively with departmental and library leadership to facilitate long-term collections space planning;
• Uploads completed finding aids to online public access catalogs including consortial online databases, such as the Online Archive of California, in coordination with the Acquisitions, Description, and Discovery services staff;
• Integrates digital collections with finding aids and related records, as appropriate, in coordination with Digitization Services Steering Committee;
• Raises public awareness of newly processed collections through social media, web-based platforms, and other outlets as appropriate;
• Collaborates with the Digitization Services Steering Committee to identify University Archives holdings that are candidates for digitization;
• Assists in developing resources to support class objectives that focus on University Archives;
• Collaborates with library and other campus resources to curate University history-centered exhibitions and to prepare University history-focused content for multiple outlets including social media and websites;
• In collaboration with UC Riverside faculty, staff and researchers, provides the necessary information, tools and services to assist them in making informed decisions regarding the preservation, reuse, archiving and sharing of the content created in the course of their teaching/learning, research and other scholarly activities while employed by UC Riverside;
• Participates in general administrative duties, library-wide activities, committees, special projects and library programs; represents the UCR Library on various University of California standing committees and ad-hoc groups.

UC professional librarians are academic appointees and are represented by an exclusive bargaining unit; The University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT). This position is in the bargaining unit.

Appointment at rank of Assistant Librarian to Librarian - Potential Career depending upon qualifications and experience. Advancement through the librarian ranks at the University of California is through a series of structured, merit-based evaluations, occurring every two to three years.

See Table 26B Represented Librarian Series ( https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2025-26/represented-july-2025-scales/t26-b.pdf ) for the salary range for this position. A reasonable estimate for this position is $72,224 - $136,895. Excellent retirement system, health, and vacation benefits.

Department: https://library.ucr.edu/

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic qualifications (required at time of application)

• Master's degree from an ALA-accredited Library & Information Science program with a concentration in archives, OR equivalent professional degree in Archival Studies, OR accredited graduate degree (Master's or Ph.D) with a specialization in archival management, OR an equivalent combination of education and experience;
• Two (2) years of progressive professional experience in special collections and/or university archives in an academic research institution;
• Demonstrated experience in arranging, describing and preserving complex manuscript and/or archival collections;
• Demonstrated experience in arranging, describing and preserving complex manuscript and/or archival collections;
• Demonstrated knowledge of and experience with Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), or other appropriate professional metadata set used to describe archival collections;
• Familiarity with preservation or conservation standards and their challenges for a variety of content types (e.g. born or reformatted digital objects as images, sound, moving recordings, data, etc. and print or other hard copy);
• Familiarity with legal and ethical issues associated with archiving digital and print materials;
• Fosters a respectful, cooperative, professional and courteous work environment, maintain confidentiality and employ tact and diplomacy;
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage and prioritize multiple tasks and projects, working cooperatively with others or independently;
• Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing;
• Knowledge of current and emerging trends, issues, workflows, and best practices associated with digital content acquisitions and curation, especially within a Special Collections or Archives environment;
• Excellent project management skills;
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work successfully in an intensely collaborative environment with a broad range of people from culturally diverse backgrounds including healthcare providers, colleagues, administrators, students, faculty, donors, and alumni.

Preferred qualifications

• Knowledge and understanding of descriptive standards such as but not limited to Resource Description and Access (RDA), General International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD(G)), or Dublin Core;
• Experience using ArchivesSpace, Aeon, Alma and/or other content management and library collections systems;
• Experience processing archival materials, including digital objects in a university or other institution of higher learning setting;
• Demonstrated experience providing reference services;
• Knowledge of at least one language other than English.
• UCR is a world-class research university with an exceptionally diverse undergraduate student body. Its mission is explicitly linked to providing routes to educational success for underrepresented and first-generation college students. A commitment to this mission is a preferred qualification.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

Document requirements

• Curriculum Vitae - Your most recently updated C.V.
• Cover Letter
• Statement of Research (Optional)
• Statement of Teaching (Optional)

Reference requirements

• 3-5 required (contact information only)

Please provide contact information for a minimum of three references.

Apply link: https://aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF02136

Help contact: [email protected]

ABOUT UC RIVERSIDE

The University of California, Riverside is a world-class research university with an exceptionally diverse undergraduate student body. UCR is a member institution of the American Association of Universities (AAU) as well as the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU). A commitment to the UCR mission ( https://apro.ucr.edu/mission-statement ) is a preferred qualification.

We seek to hire scholars who will both advance our research directions and effectively educate our undergraduate and graduate students, while also engaging with University and Professional service activities. Research and teaching statements that are included with application materials are opportunities for candidates to share knowledge, experience, and goals that support the mission of UCR. For more information on UC's criteria for successful faculty, refer to the Academic Personnel Manual (APM) 210 - Criteria for Appointment, Promotion, and Appraisal ( https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-210.pdf ).

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or other protected categories under state or federal law. It is the policy of the University of California to undertake affirmative action and anti-discrimination efforts, consistent with its obligations as a Federal and State contractor.

As a University employee, you will be required to comply with all applicable University policies and/or collective bargaining agreements, as may be amended from time to time. Federal, State, or local government directives may impose additional requirements.

As a condition of employment, the finalist will be required to disclose if they are subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct.

“Misconduct” means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant's previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment or discrimination, as defined by the employer. A Misconduct Disclosure Survey will be completed through Truescreen, which is the vendor that administers this process for the campus.

For the University of California's Violence and Sexual Harassment Policy please visit: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000385/SVSH .

For the University of California's Anti-Discrimination Policy for Employees, Students, and Third Parties, please visit: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/1001004/Anti-Discrimination .

For the University of California's Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination in Employment Policy, please visit: https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-035.pdf .

JOB LOCATION

Riverside, CA

To apply, please visit: https://aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF02136

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