Director of Special Collections

Bryn Mawr College is seeking a Director of Special Collections to lead a dynamic department responsible for managing the College’s extensive collections of rare books, manuscripts, art works, cultural artifacts, and institutional archives with a focus on activating these collections in support of the Bryn Mawr College mission. The new Director will take a lead role in developing collaborative, sustainable approaches to managing a complex portfolio of Special Collections services, projects, and programs and in strengthening the department’s focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in collections practices. The Director will foster the development of Special Collections staff as the team builds shared practices for engaging the College and its extended intellectual community with Bryn Mawr’s distinctive collections.

The Seymour Adelman Director of Special Collections reports to the Chief Information Officer & Director of Libraries in Library and Information Technology Services (LITS). Special Collections promotes teaching and learning with the collections through exhibitions, class visits, research project support, internships, and public programs. The department, in partnership with the College’s program in Museum Studies, offers opportunities for the college community to engage actively and critically with primary resources and to conduct original research, supporting inter-disciplinary approaches that foster materiality study, visual literacy, and the preservation and discovery of diverse, non-traditional narratives.   

Major areas of responsibility include coordinating the development, evaluation, and maintenance of the College’s distinctive collections; ensuring that collections are integrated into the curriculum, scholarship, and programming across the College; and maintaining a robust program of digital asset management and preservation in coordination with the TriCollege Libraries Consortium. The Special Collections department plays a key role in College Histories projects, and the Director will be a core participant in Canaday Library renovation planning and facilitation. As a member of leadership and management teams within the Library & Information Technology Services (LITS) division of the College, the Director of Special Collections contributes to overall strategic planning and management for LITS, leads specific LITS initiatives, and plays a key role in ensuring LITS is an effective partner in meeting the evolving goals of the College, including our commitments to fostering equity, inclusion, and antiracist practices.