Call for Submissions: Collections Coordinator

Program stream: Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage

Job title:Collection Coordinator

Organization name:Workers Arts and Heritage Centre

Job location:Hamilton, Ontario

Length of assignment:2024-08-06 to 2024-12-06 (18 weeks)

Hourly wage:$24.74

The Workers Arts and Heritage Centre’s mandate is to preserve, honour, and promote the culture and history of all working people. WAHC is located just off Hamilton’s creative hub, James Street North in a designated heritage building, the Custom House, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe.

WAHC is currently seeking a Collections Coordinator to carry out a Young Canada Works – Building Careers in Heritage-funded project to assist with accessioning a major donation of objects from Canada’s labour movement.

Working primarily with the ED, our main objectives for this internship are the following:

–Handle and sort the collection according to type, and union represented
–Gather metadata about the objects through donor interviews, and by engaging in online research
–Assign each object with an accession number
–Add/update metadata to our CMS catalogue: object descriptions, adding a digital image of objects, and adding nomenclature descriptions
–Store objects using archival storage solutions that ensure their longevity and preservation; develop and implement a flat storage strategy for most fragile pins and ribbons

The ideal candidate for this position will possess:

–Some experience in a community museum or art gallery setting through a school placement and/or a recent graduate of a related educational program
–strong communication skills, both oral and written
–basic computer skills in a PC environment, and ideally comfortable with Google suite of products and project management software; familiarity with CMS
–a clear and strong interest in history, heritage, labour, art, material culture
–ability to be open minded, flexible, adaptable to a fast paced environment and a community museum –setting with stretched resources and non-dedicated collections curator
–able to take direction from different people on the staff team and to work collaboratively and be open to discussion and suggestions
–capacity to be task oriented and work on a number of things at the same time
–demonstrated capacity to be willing to learn new skills and work with others

This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, through the Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage program, and all applicants must be registered in the YCW candidate pool and meet the current YCW-BCH eligibility criteria. An individual may be eligible for an internship if they:
• are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, or have refugee status in Canada (non-Canadians holding temporary work visas or awaiting permanent resident status are not eligible);
• are legally entitled to work in Canada (have a valid social insurance number);
• are between 16 and 30 years of age inclusively at the start of employment; and
• are a college or university graduate (certificate, bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate).
Note: Priority will be given to graduates that have not previously participated in YCW internship programs and that are unemployed or underemployed.
Details: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/funding/young-canada-works/students-graduates/careers-heritage-graduates.html

The candidate must be well-organized, self-directed, flexible and able to work in a shared office environment under the general direction of the Executive Director. Some travel will be required. We are looking for someone who is a progressive thinker, is adaptable, has initiative and has an appreciation for what WAHC does, and our mission/vision.

Please send a resume and cover letter as one PDF document by Friday, June 28, 2024 at 5 pm to [email protected].

No phone calls or email inquiries please. We regret that we can only respond to those selected for an interview.

WAHC promotes and values employment equity. We encourage those who have experienced discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, class, gender, ability and other systemic forms of oppression to apply and self-identify if they wish to do so.

Please note that our building is accessible and should you require any accommodations throughout the hiring process, please let us know with your submission.