Full Time, Fixed Term for 24 Months

The British Library leads and collaborates in growing the world’s knowledge base. We are engaged in a major partnership with the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar National Library to digitise and make available material relating to the history of the Gulf and Arabic scientific manuscripts. We are a multi-disciplinary programme that includes conservation, content specialists, translation, and imaging staff.

The partnership is about to begin its third phase. We will be delivering an additional 900,000 fully searchable and contextualised digital images, made freely available via the dedicated portal at www.qdl.qa and selected from the library’s archive collections, including the India Office Records and Private Papers, Sound, Maps and Arabic Manuscript collections.

This is a fantastic opportunity to be part of the curatorial team and to research, scope and catalogue cartographic material from the Library’s collections that is related to the Gulf and its environs. You will also be responsible for identifying and investigating copyright and other intellectual property rights in material selected for digitisation, as well as identifying data protection and sensitivity issues.

You will have a relevant first degree or equivalent experience, experience cataloguing cartographic material within an online system using national and international cataloguing and/or metadata standards (including knowledge of copyright as it relates to cartographic material) and employment experience in a research library, academic or other appropriate environment.

As one of the world’s great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation’s intellectual memory for the future. At present we have well over 150 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We operate the world’s largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future.

In return we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits.  Our pensionscheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes 20.9%. Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.

For further information and to apply, please visit www.bl.uk/careers quoting vacancy ref: 02661

Closing date: 6 May 2019

Interview date: 15 May 2019