Vacancy for Digital Preservation Manager at V&A

The V&A is a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity. Our mission is to champion design and creativity in all its forms, advance cultural knowledge, and inspire makers, creators and innovators everywhere. We share a 5,000-year-old story of creativity through exhibitions, events, educational programmes, digital experiences, conservation, research, and an ever-evolving national collection of over 2.8m objects spanning every creative discipline.

Our collections also include a growing number of born-digital and hybrid objects, ranging from CAD drawings, algorithmic art and emoji to personal organisers and videogames. The V&A holds more than 3,000 digital art and design objects dating from the 1950s to the present. Including works created by individuals through to large-scale corporations, the collection explores the interplay between art, design and technology, and how they shape how we live together. The V&A also accepts born-digital material for inclusion within its archival collections, such as its Theatre and Performance Archives, and the Archive of Art and Design, and the museum generates a large amount of digital corporate information, which will also be within the scope of this role.

The V&A recently commissioned an audit of its digital assets to assess their status and set out priorities for digital preservation. The Digital Preservation Manager is the V&A’s first role in its developing digital strategy and the post holder will work with the Digital Steering Group in implementing the audit’s recommendations, developing preservation strategy, policies, and procedures, and making business cases for further staff and infrastructure investment. This is an exciting opportunity to spearhead a groundbreaking initiative at the V&A. As the first person to hold this pivotal role in our organization, you will have the unique chance to shape the future of digital preservation in a world-leading museum and set a new standard for digital conservation and preservation excellence.

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