Conservator

Description:

The Paper Conservator provides a wide variety of conservation, preservation and restoration services including for paper and parchment-based cultural heritage materials with the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) collection.

In this position, you will:

• Provide knowledgeable expertise on the care, handling, and condition issues of paper-based collections for accessions, loans, exhibit, transport and storage. Perform condition assessments of individual collections, surveys groups of collections including archives, potential acquisitions and loan requests.
• Provide guidance and consultation to the exhibition, design and fabrication teams to recommend specific climate parameters for materials due to age, media, substrate materials and mounts. Attend auctions and visit donors and collectors. Provide guidance to conservation staff and interns.
• Design, propose, complete and document complex, advanced conservation treatments and scientifically based research. Conduct technical material science research for all paper and parchment materials within the museum’s collections.
• Perform condition assessments of individual collections, surveys groups of collections and requests for loan, including archives as well as those being consideration for acquisition. Examine, analyze, report, notate, photograph and explain all findings in reports. Publish findings and explore paper-based processes and artist methods.

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• Pass Pre-employment Background Investigation
• May need to complete a Probationary Period
• Maintain a Bank Account for Direct Deposit/Electronic Transfer
• Males born after 12/31/59 must be registered with Selective Service.

Conditions of Employment

Qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

For information on qualification requirements, see Qualification Standards Handbook for General Schedule Positions on OPM website.

Qualifications

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.