I hope 2022 is off to a good start for you all. I recently completed this analysis of new digital curation postings on Twitter, which found a 61% increase in hires from 2019-2021:
https://blog.still-water.net/three-year-study-shows-60-increase-in-demand-for-digital-curation
The surge coincides with the emergence of COVID-19, and certainly the pandemic spurred many collecting institutions to expand digital resources and offerings to keep their audiences engaged when travel and hours were cut.
What’s really striking from the study is the lack of consensus on what to call these positions. The most popular job titles represented no more than 5% of the tally. Instead job titles have proliferated almost as fast as the jobs themselves; 2021 saw 274 unique titles. Some are portmanteau titles, such as Curator/Archivist and Archivist-Librarian. Others look completely new, such as Community & Partnerships Manager; Born Digital & Media Preservation Assistant; and Collection Growth Specialist.
Hundreds of institutions of all kinds were hiring, from household names like the Library of Congress and Apple to less familiar establishments like the Surfing Heritage & Culture Center and the Hip Hop Collection of the Museum of Pop Culture.
The study focused on jobs promoted on Twitter and was conducted as research for UMaine's online Digital Curation graduate program. I’m co-teaching their spring course in digital preservation, which starts 19 January (https://DigitalCuration.UMaine.edu).
Cheers,
jon
______________________________
Jon Ippolito
Professor of New Media
Co-director, Still Water
Director, Digital Curation graduate program
Does Anyone Actually Read These Titles
The University of Maine
Twitter: @jonippolito
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