Vacancy Details

Full Time, Permanent

The British Library is seeking a new Curator, Popular Music Recordings. This is a high-profile and demanding post as custodian and advocate of the national collection of popular music recordings.

You will need to manage the collection, and to develop the collection by the acquisition of new and historic content, published and unpublished, analogue and digital.

You will possess an in-depth knowledge of the workings of the music industry and an expert knowledge of popular music in all its forms, from the birth of recorded sound to the present day.

Our analogue and digital holdings include music hall and vaudeville, blues, all forms of jazz, pre-WWII popular vocalists, US big band and swing, UK dance bands, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, reggae, pop, rock, hip-hop and many other genres.

A key responsibility is the monitoring and supervision of our automated Digital Audio Collection and Manual Submission Portal ingest systems for digital products. These systems allow the Library to acquire born-digital new releases directly from producers and aggregators and process them into permanent storage and catalogue systems.

The Curator is the public face of the popular music collections, promoting and interpreting the collections through blogs and social media, and through print and broadcast media, and public appearances.
 
You will need to engage effectively with both academic and general users and to answer a wide range of queries promptly and knowledgeably. A working understanding of UK copyright law will be necessary.

Over the next two years, you will have the opportunity to make a significant contribution to the Library’s planned major exhibition on black British music.

A first degree-level qualification in a discipline of central relevance for the collections is a minimum requirement, as is a proven research interest in and understanding of the collection discipline, exemplified by a personal area of expertise relevant to the collection underpinned by a record of publication.

We actively and warmly welcome applications from black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, and candidates with a disability, as they are currently under-represented within the curatorial team. Diversity and inclusion is one of our key values and we are committed to ensuring we provide a work environment where everyone can thrive. 

As one of the world’s great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation’s intellectual memory for the future and make it available to all for research, inspiration and enjoyment. At present we have well over 170 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We make our collections and programmes available toall. We operate the world’s largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future by anyone, anywhere.

In return we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits.  Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes a minimum of 26.6% (this may be higher dependant on grade). Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.

For further information and to apply, please visit www.bl.uk/careers quoting vacancy ref: 04262

Closing date: 02 October 2022

Interview date: 19 and 21 October 2022

We are unable to provide sponsorship under the UK Skilled Worker visa for this role, as it does not meet the eligibility criteria required for this immigration route