CBSCM Digital Archive & Research Manager

Role: CBSCM Digital Archive & Research Manager

Reports To: Artistic & Managing Director

Salary/Wage: 25hr, 200 hours (approx 33 hours per month)

Total Contract: $5000

Duration: September 2023 - February 2024 (Six month contract, With the potential to continue the contract for the rest of 2024

Organizational Mission

Honey Pot Performance (HPP) is a creative Afro-feminist non-profit that has evolved from an organic creative collective into a 501c3 organization. Since 2001, HPP has cultivated an approach to performance integrating movement, theater, and first-voice to examine the nuanced ways people negotiate identity, belonging, and difference in their lives and cultural memberships. We create multiform performance projects, participatory public humanities programming, and act as an incubator for the development of new works by artists of color aligned with our commitment to performance, storytelling, and the Black experience in all its diasporic variation.

About the CBSCM
The Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM) archive is designed by Honey Pot Performance (HPP) to reach a wide demographic, from the casually curious to academic experts. The archive documents the lived experiences of Black Chicagoans from the Great Migration through the rise of house music, giving this chronically under-documented constituency an opportunity to see their stories and histories represented as written record and archive. The act of creating and sharing the CBSCM archive not only serves to insert this important segment of American history into the official canon, but also engages those whom the archive represents, inviting them to actively help to build and shape this historical record, and increasing their agency from passive audience into participant and history-maker.

In addition to working directly with community members as primary sources for contributions to the archive, the CBSCM has partnered with local archives and organizations including the Center for Black Music Research, DuSable Museum, the Blackivists, The Modern Dance Music Research and Archiving Foundation, Illinois Humanities, Westside Justice Center, and Arts & Public Life | UChicago for research and programming. HPP purposefully approaches the process of archiving as a social, community driven practice, with the aim of fostering intersection and interaction between a wide range of institutions, grassroots efforts, and practitioners. In this way, we hope to additionally serve the archiving and historic preservation community by facilitating connections with communities they may not normally have direct access to.

Most public engagement around the archive takes place in community-based partner institutions and community centers on the South and West Sides of Chicago, both of which are home to majority Black and Brown communities.

Description of materials in the collection, or to be collected

Since 2014, the CBSCM archived history of Chicago’s Black social culture across the 20th century from the Great Migration through the birth of House music. Data has been compiled on over 350 venues in the Chicagoland area through open sessions, targeted interviews, and multi-faceted research. Materials in the collection include digitally recorded oral histories, digitized audio from cassette tapes, two-dimensional paper flyers, posters, small hand-held “pluggers,” and printed photographs, as well as sartorial expressions of house music culture.

The data has two main components:

(1) socio-spatial information relevant to the history of Chicago’s Black social cultures, much of which is yet to be imported from a legacy archive; and (2) newly collected primary sources that speak to the complexity and fullness of these cultures. All of this data has been aggregated during the development and production of CBSCM mapping sessions and public programs over the past six years and is still ongoing. New assets include a range of performances, panel discussions, and workshops documented through on-site photography and videography, as well as data captured during on-site oral history interviews, and at audio archiving stations, and still and moving image capture stations.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage workflow and deliverables for ongoing work with various contractors and interns including tasks such as coordinating video documentation, transcription, and key-word coding CBSCM public programs (approximately 10-12 hours per month)
• Provide lead project management for the community curators program. Tasks include keeping research and digital exhibit development on time; coordinating and managing data collection; and processing components of CBSCM archiving events (approximately 10 hours per month)
• Coordinates with CBSCM program coordinator, archiving advisory team, and any additional interns or contractors to source additional research needed to complete exhibit narratives (approximately 10 hours per month)

The editor shall be responsible for:

• Incorporating new data collected from recorded CBSCM public programs into CBSCM Omeka.net archive by editing existing items and creating new ones where appropriate
• Copying and managing backup of all completed CBSCM transcripts/data to the HPP Google drive and master spreadsheet
• Reviewing all copied transcripts for typos as well as for accurate representation and editing them to best reflect the panel presentations
• Offering panelists an opportunity to review transcripts and address difficult to understand or ambiguous terms
• Inputting transcripts into Omeka database as standalone exhibits
• Entering all panelist information into the Omeka database and connecting panelist entries to their exhibit
• Inputting each panel into Omeka as an event and connecting it to its exhibit
• Sharing completed exhibit with CBSCM staff for review
• Create online exhibits pertaining to specific CBSCM panels
• Other duties as assigned

Desired Assets - Combined Qualifications and Skills:

• Interest in social change work, community engaged arts and culture sector with ability to adapt and an openness to learn;
• Early career information professional with preferred background in archives management, library and information science, history (focus on African/Black studies/Chicago), curatorial and museum studies;
• Excellent attention to detail, written/oral communication and interpersonal skills across media (digital, email, social media platforms and academic communications)
• Demonstrated experience with or knowledge of developing and implementing communications strategies
• Demonstrated knowledge of procedures and practices for the arrangement and description of archival collections in general and special collections of electronic records in particular
• Demonstrated project management abilities and excellent organizational skills.
• Self-motivated with ability to work and problem-solve independently
• Strong teamwork skills with the ability to balance independent and group work; Ability to interact with diverse staff and public
• Experience/Knowledge of content management systems including web publishing software(s) for online digital collections
• Demonstrated experience working with word processing and office software applications including: Microsoft Office, Google Suite, and Adobe Creative Suite (particularly Photoshop and Illustrator, but InDesign would be a definite asset)
• Typing & aural processing

The following are assets are preferred but not required:

• Web and Graphic design experience

• Familiarity with HTML/CSS

• Bilingual (English/Spanish)

• Physical ability to lift heavy boxes (up to 25lbs) and exhibit props.

Consideration given towards students in progress towards completing degree and/or certification programs

TO APPLY PLEASE SEND A RESUME AND COVER LETTER TO: hpp@honeypotperformance.org