Project Cataloguer, Comics (Assistant Librarian), National Art Library

The V&A is the world's leading museum of art and design. At its heart is the National Art Library (NAL), one of the world’s foremost art libraries, open to everyone interested in researching art and design histories, and much else besides.

The Role

The Library is responsible for over 900,000 printed and manuscript items, including works collected to exemplify the art and design of the book and publishing, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary photo books. Among these are very extensive collections of comics and graphic novels, as publications that marry images and words and have a wide cultural reach. One comics collection remains to be catalogued: this consists of c480 titles (c1500 issues) focussed on the depiction of women, largely (but not solely) aimed at female readers. A small proportion of the material is sexually explicit and/or offensive, but is being preserved here as a record of attitudes and publishing practices of the period. The collection is particularly strong on the most popular years of American, pre-Comics Code, romance comic books of the 1940s and 50s. Funding has been earmarked to enable this cataloguing to be completed as a project in 2024. Library cataloguing at the V&A follows RDA / MARC 21 and other standards. The library management system is OCLC’s WorldShare Management Services (WMS), and the catalogue is Discovery (see https:/ al-vam.on.worldcat.org/discovery). Working to the NAL’s Serials Librarian and comics curator, the Comics Cataloguer will design and execute the Rakoff Romance Collection comics cataloguing project, to the agreed deadline.

Job requirements

The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects, books and archives that span over 5,000 years of human creativity. The museum holds many of the UK's national collections and houses some of the greatest resources for the study of architecture, furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics, book arts, Asian art and design, theatre and performance.

Benefits

Generous pension scheme 29 days plus bank holidays Flexible working Tickets to V&A exhibitions Subsidised staff canteen 25% discount in V&A shops Give as you earn scheme Bicycle loan Interest-free season ticket Interest-free rental deposit loan Free safety checks and small repairs to your bike with Doctor Bike Wide range of training and professional development opportunities Employee Assistance Programme Staff diversity networks