Collections Technician

The Chicago Academy of Sciences seeks to fill a part-time Collections Technician position with its Collections & Archives Department. Reporting to the Senior Director of Collections, the Technician will work closely with the Collections Manager and Senior Director to assist with a range of projects to achieve departmental initiatives of preservation, access, and development of the collections. This position will be stationed primarily at the Academy’s off-site collections facility in the Ravenswood neighborhood and may occasionally conduct work at the Nature Museum in Lincoln Park.

Principle duties and responsibilities:

·         Assist with processing items, including cataloguing, databasing, labeling, establishing appropriate housing, and integrating into storage. This may be with all manner of types of objects, from vertebrate, invertebrate, botanical, fossil, cultural, archival, library, etc.

·         Digitally image objects using a flatbed scanner or digital SLR camera and imaging software. Embed descriptive, technical, and administrative metadata into image files.

·         Assist with projects to expand access to the Academy’s collections, including cleaning data for migration into data portals, creating visual representations of data through maps, charts, and other diagrams, georeferencing, collection tours, and other activities.

·         Carefully handle irreplaceable natural history objects and associated data to maintain specimen and data integrity.

·         Assist with facility management activities, including integrated pest management, environmental monitoring, and storage maintenance to ensure collection preservation.

·         Assist with sharing department activities with public audiences including through blogs and social media, as well as participating in museum events.

How to apply: See https://naturemuseum.org/about-us/jobs-internships-volunteering for full position description. Please send your resume and a cover letter in PDF format to hr-colltech@naturemuseum.org. Application deadline is July 31, 2024.