Audiovisual Conservation Coordinator

Posted: 19/08/2024- Closing Date: 01/09/2024- Salary: $80,430.00 - $87,572.00- 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: Audiovisual Conservation who prepare and preserve audiovisual material for digitisation, curatorial and access programs, conduct research and analysis of audiovisual materials; and Collection Conservation - who care for the documents and artefacts collection, including interventive treatments, exhibition preparation, condition reporting and research. Both streams 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**

Audiovisual (AV) Conservation Coordinators play a key role in managing the AV Conservation work program. This role may liaise with internal and external stakeholders to prioritise AV Conservation requests for either digitisation, access or incoming audiovisual collections work programs and manage related workflows.

AV Conservation Coordinators will undertake straightforward through to complex AV Conservation treatments; engage in research; support, train and develop staff and support the team to develop and maintain policies and procedures.

The focus of this role is working with the physical audiovisual collection and ensuring the program meets the strategic and operational requirements of the NFSA. A positive, flexible, forward thinking, service-oriented approach is needed to meet the expectations of this position.

The position is located at the NFSA Acton, ACT headquarters, and may also work at the NFSA’s Mitchell ACT storage facilities at times.

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

- Effectively coordinate, support and supervise the AV Conservation team in order to deliver the strategic and operational requirements of the Conservation team.
- Assist the Team Leader, Conservation in assigning the workflows, priorities, and quality controls; gathering data and analysing complex technical issues; with the ability to develop procedures which enhance effective and efficient workflows.
- Ensure that Key Performance Indicators can be met by prioritising resources to ensure that internal and external requests are efficiently and effectively serviced.
- Advise staff on preservation practices and procedures and able to take on more complex preservation actions required such as technical selection and research.
- Train staff in routine practices for audiovisual preservation, and the recording of technical information in the NFSA’s collection management systems, including Mediaflex.
- Work with independence, making decisions using specialist knowledge under limited guidance. Problem solves creative