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A role by any other name: A content analysis of digital asset management on library and archives job boards
Journal of Digital Media Management,
11
(2),
180-189
(2023)
Abstract
A digital asset manager curates the sum of an institution’s knowledge in the form of digital assets. A cursory review of job advertisements reinforces the ubiquity of digital asset management (DAM) in library and archival contexts. However, it also reveals great variability in how this specialised work is articulated in advertisements, the credentials sought by employers and the salaries offered. This study assesses the state, scope and attributes of DAM positions using a content analysis of 98 unique job advertisements for DAM positions collected from library and archive job boards over a six-month period. Voyant, an open source text analysis tool, was utilised to yield word and phrase frequencies to aid interpretation of scope of work, position expectations and education requirements. The results provide insights to aid organisations in recruiting DAM librarians and archivists, guide students in forging career paths in DAM, and inform development of the DAM curriculum in higher education. To meet the needs of the field, the authors recommend clarity in DAM job scopes, developing technological and personnel capacity to support the work, and calibrating compensation among employment sectors to elevate the importance of the work and promote equity across the profession.
Keywords: digital asset management; libraries; archives; position descriptions; job advertisements; hiring
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Dana Reijerkerk is the Knowledge Management and Digital Assets Librarian at Stony Brook University, where she manages the sum of Stony Brook University Libraries organisational knowledge and digital assets. Her responsibilities include assessment and reporting of data-driven analytics. She holds a Master of Information from the University of Michigan. Her research interests include Indigenous open access and information privacy issues and Indigenisation of GLAM web presences.
Kristen J. Nyitray is Director, Special Collections and University Archives, and University Archivist at Stony Brook University, where she leads collection stewardship, public engagement and technical work for the university’s collections of rare books, manuscripts, maps and archives. She is a Certified Archivist and has a Digital Archives Specialist certificate from the Society of American Archivists. Her research interests include examining the ways libraries and archives interface with Indigenous histories, public history and heritage tourism.
