Ontological Research Assistant
Type: Regular Full-Time (projected end date of 2/2023)
Hourly Rate: $26.45
This is a temporary IMLS grant-funded position through February 2023. The project centers on a group of LACMA staff and an advisory board of external stakeholders who
will review the museum’s data and cataloging practices through the lens of new museum ethics with an emphasis on inclusive and anti-racist actions to acknowledge and address biases. The Ontological Research Assistant will work as a member of the project team
to review case studies from LACMA’s permanent collection to review terms and methods used in the description and cataloging items and makers. Case studies will be from the collections of the Art of the Ancient Americas, Photography, and Prints & Drawings departments.
The Art of the Ancient Americas collection focuses on the indigenous past of the Americas with objects from Mexico, Central America, and South America. The Wallis Annenberg Photography Department has holdings of more than twenty-five thousand works that span
the period from the medium's invention in 1839 to the present. The Prints & Drawings collection is comprised of about thirty thousand works from Western Europe and America, ranging from early examples of printing to contemporary graphics with an emphasis on
Southern California artworks since 1960.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Serve as primary contact for the project stakeholders and for representatives from the advisory board to facilitate the process and coordinate meetings and conversations:
- Assist with establishing and building ongoing relationships with community organizations and members.
- Assist with researching and developing data collection plans and instruments
- Assist with planning and facilitating meetings, including schedule, goals, format, and discussion points.
- Compile, analyze and report on meeting results and research and evaluation findings to further the process of learning.
- Participate in cultural competency learning experiences and meetings with the advisory board.
- Review case studies to assess existing terms and investigate alternates and their usage where deemed appropriate.
- Assist with mapping new data in the museum’s collection management system (TMS)
- Assist drafting an artist questionnaire through which living artists can self-identify how they are represented in the database.
- Develop workflows for sourcing and collecting data from external sources e.g. institutional repositories, public engagement/crowd-sourcing, subject specialists, etc.
- Draft documentation for new data standards and procedures established during the project.
- Produce blog posts for LACMA’s Unframed about research highlights and perform other duties/special projects as assigned.
- Assist with documenting the process on a regular basis to produce a detailed report and toolkit at the end of the project.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Coursework or degree in Information Science, Library Science, Museum Studies, or related field.
- 5-10 years demonstrated experience working with art collections, cataloging, and collections management databases (specifically TMS).
- Familiarity with the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), Union List of Artist Names (ULAN).
- Familiarity with Linked Open Data, open data initiatives, Wikidata triples, and Mukurtu collections management system (preferred).