About the National Film and Sound Archive 

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) is Australia’s audiovisual archive, telling the national story by collecting, preserving and sharing audiovisual media, the cultural experience platforms of our time. The collection itself dates back to 1935, making it one of the world’s oldest audiovisual collections. It is also one of the country’s most used cultural collections, with around 125 million views of collection content each year. The NFSA is in a period of significant change. Following increased Government investment, the institution is in a process of digital transformation, establishing the NFSA as Australia’s most dynamic and valued cultural organisation. We are rebuilding our curatorial workforce and developing the NFSA’s capacity to digitise our collection at scale – to preserve it for the future, to make sure it can be discovered, and to share it with all Australians.

We continue to work on developing a stable, secure and future-proof workforce across our four physical sites based in Canberra and Mitchell in the ACT as well as in Sydney and Melbourne.

We are also undergoing a program of business improvement for many of our corporate systems to improve efficiency and reduce manual handling. 

We are an ambitious organisation, and we aim to be an employer of choice within the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector, providing exciting and challenging work, as well as favourable employment conditions and unique development opportunities for our staff. 

About the Teams 

The Collection Management Team is part of the Conservation & Collection Management section of the Collection Preservation Branch. The team undertakes a broad range of operational activities ensuring the National Collection is accessible, audited and stored in accordance with established standards to ensure its preservation for perpetuity.

The Collection Management Team comprises three sub-teams: Collection Security, Collection Services and Collection Projects. The Services team are primarily responsible for daily collection retrievals and returns, ensuring that collection items are transported safely and securely, and scanned to correct locations at Acton and Mitchell. The team also undertake collection relocation and care projects. The Security team are responsible for a variety of tasks that ensure the collection is secure, safe and accounted for – stocktaking, auditing, verification, archival packaging, pest and disaster management, monitoring and collection care.

The Opportunity 

The Coordinator, Collection Service plays a key role in supervising the activities of their teams, ensuring that outcomes are delivered to the expected service level standards in accordance with collection management best practice principles as applied in an audiovisual archive environment. 

The role reports to the Assistant Registrar, Collection Management. It is required to develop, document and implement operational procedures as well as undertake supervisory responsibilities including administrative duties, performance management and staff development.

The Coordinator will have significant depth of audiovisual format knowledge, partnered with supervision and administrative skills. Vital to the role is a firm understanding and knowledge of collection storage and archiving practices, collection handling and auditing principles. 

Proven experience in working with collection management systems and advanced computer skills is also important. Effective time and staff management partnered with excellent communication skills, attention to detail, drive, and a flexible approach to working in a challenging environment are key attributes to achieving the expected outcomes of this role.

Please note: This recruitment process is intended to fill both current and future vacancies. While the position on offer is ongoing, a merit pool of suitable applicants may be established to fill similar ongoing and non-ongoing positions within the next 18-months.