In this series, we hope to share information and resources for new professionals or those folks in need of change.
First up, an interview with Meredith Lowe, the creator of Archives Gig, a website devoted to sharing job postings for archives around the globe. At ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2024, Archives Gig and INALJ (I Need a Library Job) received the Exemplary Service Award from SAA.

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What inspired you to start Archives Gig? When did you start it?

I started Archives Gig in 2010, when I was relatively fresh out of my library science graduate program and interested in breaking more permanently into the archives field. I worked in an iSchool (and still do – my career goals changed!). We had been doing some career services projects for our students that included posting open positions. I wanted to broaden the scope of the work and make it accessible to alumni and others, so I built the first iteration of Archives Gig on LiveJournal. LiveJournal was maybe not the most logical choice looking back on it, but it was a platform I was familiar with. It moved to WordPress in 2014 and I got a paid WordPress account relatively soon after that, so it’s hanging out at archivesgig.com nowadays and still hosted on WordPress.

How did you choose the platform you post on and has that changed? How many social media accounts do you link to?

I already mentioned the switch to WordPress. People can sign up to get emails when I post positions, and some find me through Facebook. Archives Gig used to feed to X/Twitter as well, but apparently X stopped playing nice with WordPress at some point and connection is no longer supported. If there are other platforms out there that would connect nicely with WordPress I would be happy to consider expanding to those! I am always willing to hear feedback.

Were you aware of any changes during or after the COVID pandemic?

Yes, for sure. 2020 was the lowest annual total posts I have made since I moved to WordPress in 2014. I usually put up 1400-1600ish postings annually; 2020 had 1,061 total postings. I have definitely seen an increase, anecdotally, in remote positions and positions that are explicitly hybrid. People are very interested in remote roles, those are always the ones that get the most engagement from followers. However, very few remote roles are permanent, full-time positions.

Who do you think uses the resource most often? New professionals or folks familiar with the field?

I’m going to hazard a guess on this. I did a brief survey earlier this spring (2024) to get a quick survey for a Council of State Archivists webinar presentation I was working on. I got about 200 responses and when I asked what general level of career experience respondents had, it was about 35% early career (0-3 years), 25% experienced (7+ years), 17% fairly experienced (3-7 years), and 17% grad students. There were some other smaller groups but those were the biggest groups. So the biggest group still seems to be grad students and early career archivists, but I still have a decent number of people who are more experienced looking at this resource.

Does running Archives Gig give you hints about the job market? (For example, jobs in similar positions or certain areas of the country or kinds of repositories)

The biggest concentrations of jobs are unsurprisingly in areas of high population density. For example, New York, California, and the Washington, DC area all are higher in the number of postings relative to other places. I don’t think that’s too surprising. Sometimes state archives positions are more concentrated in a state’s smaller capital city rather than its urban centers (for example, Albany, NY or Frankfort, KY). 

My sense is that another change is that institutions are slightly more transparent with salary listings than they were a few years ago. Finally, I’m seeing many more positions that have particular qualifications in digital archives projects, such as digitization, digital preservation, digital asset management, and so on. I suggest that acquiring skills in these areas will likely make a candidate more competitive on the job market.

Have you always listed international positions? How do you learn about them?

I have always posted international positions, but I have a few caveats. The audience for Archives Gig is based mostly in the USA and Canada, so I require the position description to have an English language version. I used to seek international positions out more intentionally, but in the interest of time and to be most helpful to my mostly North American-based followers, I now usually only post international positions that are sent to me directly.

Do you ever hear back from folks about landing a job?

Yes and I love to hear it! It’s my favorite kind of email to get and I’m so pleased when someone lets me know about their successful job search! I have heard from people at this point who have found more than one job through Archives Gig and it’s amazing to have been a resource during someone’s career journey.