Job

Research Assistant

Research Assistant on a British Academy funded project: Archival culture in the 21st century: the impact of the Heritage Lottery Fund on perceptions of the roles and duties of the archive profession
40% of FTE for six months (1 March - 31 August 2007) on grade 6, SP24 (£22,332 plus London Allowance, pro rata).

Dr Andrew Flinn is seeking to recruit a Research Assistant to undertake this project during the spring and summer of 2007. The Research Assistant will be a graduate and, ideally, will have also completed the MA in Archives and Records Management and have experience in records and archive management or an MA in another information discipline.

The project is a joint UCL / National Council on Archives (NCA) venture to investigate how Heritage Lottery funding and the strategic aims of the HLF have impacted upon archivists' perception of their professional duties by examining the extent to which the aims of the HLF are understood and accepted within the profession and how far the receipt of HLF funding has been responsible for a re-evaluation of core professional roles and duties. The key research objectives will be:

• to identify whether archivists' views of their professional responsibilities have been influenced by the HLF's more generic 'heritage' framework
• to identify whether the HLF's strategic aims in terms of access, learning and participation have had a direct impact on archivists' views of their core activities, and on the development of archival services
• to consider whether the HLF has influenced archivists' views on career progression and the skills and knowledge base required to be an archivist in the early 21st century
• to consider to what extent changes in these areas can be directly attributed to the HLF rather than to a broad range of other political and cultural factors.

The project will run from 1 February to 31 December 2007 and the Research Assistant will be in post from March to August 2007.

The Research Assistant will undertake desk research using library and internet resources, focussing on the impact of external funding within the heritage sector generally and on workforce development issues specifically develop an on-line questionnaire aimed at the archival profession as a whole and analyse the returns arrange, co-ordinate and with the other investigators facilitate three focus groups write up focus group data and provide some preliminary analysis of the results of these exercises. The research assistant will also have the opportunity to contribute to the final project report, a conference paper and a research article.

The Research Assistant will be supervised jointly by the principal investigator, Dr Andrew Flinn and the other investigator, Louise Ray (Archive Lottery Adviser, National Council on Archives).

If you want to discuss the post, please contact Dr Flinn (a.flinn@ucl.ac.uk, 020 7679 2481) or Louise Ray (Louise.Ray@nationalarchives.gov.uk, 020 8392 5347)

If you are interested in applying for this post, please submit a letter of application and cv to:
Dr Andrew Flinn
School of Library, Archive and Information Studies
University College London
Gower Street,
London
WC1E 6BT

Taking Action for Equality

The closing date for applications is Tuesday, 6th February 2007.