A newsletter to learn about practical ways to decolonize your research and data work-lives with byte-sized drabbles about the daily life of a data professional.

Curated Content: Data Fellowships

I came upon the job board, Idealist, which is good for finding nonprofit, community organization, and social justice gigs. I like that they almost always post a salary, location, and have a lot of flexible work jobs. These fellowships below come from this job board.

Digital Forensics Fellowship with Amnesty International (Remote)

This is a 4-month part-time paid fellowship for 5-7 human rights defenders, journalists, or technologists working in civil society organizations globally to give you skills on forensic investigative techniques. Check out past projects of fellows. This seems great for someone who wants a portfolio project, like Python scripts or to build an app. Applications due January 23, 2025.

Publishing Fellowship with Princeton University Press (US Based - Hybrid of Remote)

This is 1-year paid with benefits fellowship that focuses on analyzing and collecting data for Princeton University Press. The fellow project is to review and implement new book printing strategies. You don’t need prior publishing experience to apply. Applications due January 26th, 2025.

Industry Insights: What’s Expected of a Digital Asset Manager?

The DAM Job Market Based on Job Ad Data

With no definitive data source on DAM careers, my long-time collaborator Kristen J. Nyitray and I assessed 98 unique job postings on popular library and archive job boards like ArchivesGig, ALA JobLIST, and CLIR over six months. 

If you didn’t know, digital asset management (DAM) is a well-established career in the corporate sector and in Big Data curation, but it's just emerging as an essential activity in library and archival spaces.

DAM work in libraries and archives could look like this: managing licensed e-resources, data management, taxonomy and metadata work; examples of digital assets in libraries and archives include digitized and born-digital special collections, institutional emails, archived web pages and e-journal backfiles. 

What kind of job titles do DAM roles have? 

Most were for in-person academic or research organizations roles located in the United States and included employers such as Harvard University, Wabash College, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Lionsgate, Nestlé, and Blizzard Entertainment. Most advertised job titles included the word ‘digital’ in combination with the words ‘archivist’, ‘asset’ and ‘preservation’. Unique titles (‘Audio Visual Preservation Specialist’, ‘Photoarchivist’) often focus on a type of digital asset, especially audio-visual materials. 

What skills do DAM jobs want? 

Collectively the job ads asked for communication skills, skills in programming, statistics, systems management and data analytics, markup languages, python, APIs, and SQL, and experience with a name brand DAM system or repository platform.

Do they all require an ALA-accredited master’s degree? 

Corporate roles had a wide variety of educational requirements ranging from a high school diploma to a bachelor’s degree. In comparison library/archive positions often required a master’s or graduate degree (only 30 percent of the time did a job and asked for the graduate degree to be ALA-accredited (American Library Association). 

How much is the average salary? 

When salary was listed for private/corporate roles, the starting salary ranges began in the low to mid-$60,000 USD range. Library/archive DAM positions offered on average $15,000 USD less than the corporate sector. Some positions offered as low as $35,256 USD.

What should you take away from the data?

If a DAM job is in the private/corporate sectors, you make significantly more money, need a high school diploma and possibly a Bachelor’s degree, and the role is often dedicated entirely to DAM. DAM jobs in the cultural heritage industry pay significantly less, typically ask for at least a master’s degree, and are often not a dedicated DAM role (meaning DAM is just a small part of larger duties). 

Data professionals like myself must balance our professional interests and practicalities like paying our bills. The data says DAM is not valued or compensated fairly in libraries/archives and DAM isn’t seen by employers as a separate and distinct role like it is in corporate/Big Data. This is a problem.

See the data for yourself: Reijerkerk, D. & Nyitray, K. J. “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, no.2 (2023): 180-189.

Let’s Create!

I’m open to collaborations, freelance gigs, and conversations about the ideas I shared. I’m trying out a new newsletter template, so let me know what you think. Feel free to get in touch and comment on the newsletter.