Manager, Conservation

Posted: 12/09/2024- Closing Date: 29/09/2024- Salary: $111,966.00 - $120,025.00- Job Type: Ongoing / Non-ongoing; Full time- Location: Canberra- Job Category: Arts, Culture**About the National Film and Sound Archive**

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) is Australia’s audiovisual archive, telling the national story by collecting, preserving and sharing audiovisual media, the cultural experience platforms of our time. The collection itself dates back to 1935, making it one of the world’s oldest audiovisual collections. It is also one of the country’s most used cultural collections, with around 125 million views of collection content each year. The NFSA is in a period of significant change. Following increased Government investment, the institution is in a process of digital transformation, establishing the NFSA as Australia’s most dynamic and valued cultural organisation. We are rebuilding our curatorial workforce and developing the NFSA’s capacity to digitise our collection at scale - to preserve it for the future, to make sure it can be discovered, and to share it with all Australians.

We continue to work on developing a stable, secure and future-proof workforce across our four physical sites based in Canberra and Mitchell in the ACT as well as in Sydney and Melbourne.

We are also undergoing a program of business improvement for many of our corporate systems to improve efficiency and reduce manual handling.

We are an ambitious organisation, and we aim to be an employer of choice within the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector, providing exciting and challenging work, as well as favourable employment conditions and unique development opportunities for our staff.

**About the Team**

The Conservation Services team is part of the Conservation and Collection Management Section, Collection Preservation Branch. The team conducts an extensive work program providing a range of activities for the preservation and ongoing care of the audiovisual, documents and artefacts collection. The team has two streams: AV Conservation who prepare and preserve audiovisual material for digitisation, curatorial and access programs, conduct research and analysis of audiovisual materials; and the Collection Conservation team who look after the documents and artefacts collection, exhibition preparation and condition reporting. Both teams coordinate to undertake a range of collection care programs such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), chemical management, collection assessments and procedures for hazards in collections.

The team provides technical advice regarding access and digitisation requests, undertakes straightforward and complex conservation works and ensures the national audiovisual collection is preserved by maintaining current policies and procedures.

**The Opportunity**

The Manager, Conservation will lead the conservation and preservation of the NFSA’s diverse collection, which spans audiovisual formats, objects, costumes, documents and technology.

The Manager, Conservation supports a team of 20 staff undertaking a wide range of tasks including preparing film materials for digitisation, undertaking conservation treatments, managing collection hazards, responding to external client requests for screening loans and external digitisation and AV format identification and assessment. The role is responsible for considering sustainable collection approaches ensuring resources are most effectively deployed and collection preservation outcomes benefit existing and future stakeholders.

The Manager, Conservation will have an interest in emerging preservation issues and maturing trends and will be motivated to deliver outreach and training activities.

The occupant will be an effective leader and problem solver to join the NFSA’s high performing team. The role will also support research and innovation and contribute to NFSA’s workforce planning and the operational program.

Under broad direction, this position is responsible for delivering the following functions:

- Provide strategic and practical leadership to the program and performance of the Conservation team relating to audiovisual, documents and artefacts, paper and photographic collections.
- Create developmental opportunities and engagement to foster a professional working environment and knowledge sharing culture.
- Proactively contribute to and support the Senior Manager Conservation and Collection Management in providing expert advice, analysis, reports, statistics, and forward planning relating to the conservation of the collection and work of the team.
- Cultivate productive working relationships across the NFSA and actively engage with national and international audiovisual networks and industry practitioners keeping abreast of new developments, changing practice and disseminate NFSA knowledge in the field.
- Develop, review and implement projects, policies and procedures relevant to conservation and c