Collections Access Coordinator and Provenance Researcher

Staff - Non Union

Job Category

M&P - AAPS

Job Profile

AAPS Salaried - Museum, Level B

Job Title

Collections Access Coordinator and Provenance Researcher

Department

Collections and Information Centre Operations | Museum of Anthropology

Compensation Range

$6,251.00 - $8,986.00 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date

July 27, 2025

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary
The Collections Access Manager will be responsible for managing the Indigenous Collection Access Program as well as all other collections-related access and research visits to MOA. This includes, but is not limited to: facilitating community and researcher visits, administering grants, coordinating collection access, and supporting researchers and community members during visits. This position also conducts provenance research on the MOA collections in support of repatriation, collections access, curatorial initiatives, and supports other special projects related to the collections. Additionally, the position contributes to policy development, strategic planning, and museum committees, while also training staff, interns, and students on collection-related topics.

Organizational Status
This position reports to the Head of the Collections Care, Access and Management Department, works closely with the Collections Registrar, and works collaboratively with other Collections and Conservation staff, as well as MOA Curatorial staff.

Work Performed

This position is responsible for:
Collections Access
- Manages the Indigenous Collections Access Programme:

- Facilitates community member, family and group visits to the museum. This includes: liaising with appropriate curators; dialoguing with researchers prior to and during research visits; selecting and pulling collections; ensuring that object information is readily available; supporting groups and individuals during visits; coordinating use of the research rooms; and hosting (ordering meals and setting up the Community Lounge as appropriate)
- Conducts research on collections to support user inquiries and family needs.
- Collaborates with curators, librarians, and archivists, to ensure coordinated information access.
- Coordinates collections access with security, reception, admissions, and curatorial staff as appropriate. Develops and delivers outreach programs to foster engagement.
- Facilitates all other access requests to MOA’s object collections, and information from the collections management database, for a variety of researchers, including curatorial and other museum staff, external researchers, academic researchers, and UBC professors and students.

Provenance Research:

- Researches Museum records including but not limited to, accession files, catalogue cards, ledgers, the collections database, MOA and UBC Archival collection records, relevant literature, oral histories, as well as other lines of evidence, in support of repatriation, collections access, curatorial initiatives, and other MOA special projects related to the object collections.
- Writes concise reports summarizing the object information and the circumstances under which the item(s) entered the museum, including any information about the circumstances under which the item(s) were removed from their original cultural context, if known.
- Provides sets of object data, using spreadsheets, reports or exports from the collections database, to Indigenous and other originating community researchers, when requested.

Other:

- Serves as a member of the MOA Repatriation Committee: oversees the preparation of repatriation documentation, maintains the committee’s tracking list, and retains, manages, and archives all associated communications and documents; conducts provenance research relevant to repatriation requests and compiles reports for the committee; facilitates appraisals for the objects approved for repatriation; coordinates with conservation staff as required for materials analysis and packing; updates the object records to reflect status change; and participates in policy development and implementation.
- Responds to community enquiries regarding the Museum’s collections, and