Lead Museum Specialist at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)

Job Title: Lead Museum Specialist

Job Status: Full-time

Location: Washington, D.C.

Salary: $99,200 – $128,956


Duties

The Lead Museum Specialist will provide management support and team leadership over museum specialists, contractors, interns, and fellows, and oversight of the museum focusing on large and complex work of care and management for presentations and exhibitions, implementation of safety policies and procedures, collections logistics and transportation, and facilities management  of collections storage locations, collections storage improvements for the collection through the development of unit-specific plans and procedures for space management, security, and growth of the collection.

In this position, you will:

  • Be responsible for independent directing, coordinating, proposing, initiating agreements for and performing collections management functions that include preparing items for short- and long-term storage, transportation between the museum’s various facilities (collection storage, conservation lab, photo studio, preparation room, museum building, and offsite storage), facilitating incoming and outgoing collection items, and for the presentation and exhibition of the national collection.
  • Collaborate with staff to conduct periodic inventories of the collection.  Lead the team in assessing its strengths and weaknesses and provide leadership to the team in exploring alternatives and determining what improvements can be made; communicate team consensus and recommendations to the supervisor.
  • Serve as team leader for the Collection Management team (exhibitions).  Identify, distribute, and balance workload and tasks among employees; make adjustments to accomplish the workload; support individual and team growth and advocate for team’s needs, train or arrange for the training of team members; provide or arrange for training.
  • Record, update, and maintain collections information to the NMAAHC electronic collections information system used to track, record, and report on work performed.  Provide regular and ad hoc statistics.
  • Plan, request and manage budget for the collections management activities related to exhibitions and reports to the Supervisory Collections Specialists and the Assistant Director of Collections.

Responsibilities 

Basic Qualifications:

Experience related to the operation or management of a museum or similar collection of valuable objects. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include collections management, registration, cataloging, research, preservation, restoration, or conservation of collections of museum material, or other experience related to the position to be filled.  Most positions require a particular subject-matter specialization, e.g., aeronautics, anthropology, art, geology, history, natural science, technology, biology, or zoology.

In addition to the basic qualification requirement above:

Experience: You qualify for this position if you have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-11 level in the Federal Service.  For this position, specialized experience is defined as demonstrated experience assisting in the management of a museum’s collection management department such as collections management, logistics, packing, shipping, exhibition support, collection storage; and overseeing the coordination of work schedules, deadlines, and standards for acceptable work.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Part-time and/or unpaid experience related to this position will be considered to determine the total number of years and months of experience. Be sure to note the number of paid or unpaid hours worked each week.

 

Education: There is no positive education requirement for this position.

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