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Staffing

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This page provides advice, some examples and questions for you to consider when going through the staffing process of a digitisation project.

Roles

In undertaking any digitisation work, there are a number of roles that may need to be filled. For the purpose of this document, however, we shall concentrate on the skills, training and recruitment of digitisers as they will undertake the majority of direct work within any project. It is worth considering that, depending on the size and scale of any work, that there may be a need for additional roles such as senior digitisers, data managers and curatorial assistants to fully support the work.

In your institution, what do you anticipate the role of a Digitiser to be? What will they undertake and how large may any team be? All of these are likely to influence what you may consider to be the desirable skills for potential candidates, the recruitment process and training program.

Skills

The skills required for a digitiser may well differ due to the anticipated scope and detail of any project but, as a guideline, NHMUK has the following role competencies within their Digitiser job description:

  • Demonstrable experience in the field of natural sciences, or a strongly related discipline.
  • Demonstrable experience of collections digitisation, recuration or conservation projects (or relevant transferable experience).
  • Good working knowledge of collections metadata and collection management systems (or relevant transferable experience).
  • Good working knowledge of working in the cloud with either Office 365 or Google Docs suite.
  • Experience and/or knowledge of checking and verifying data either in documents, spreadsheets, databases, scientific literature or other sources.
  • Ability to work as part of a team.
  • Demonstrable manual dexterity for handling small and fragile collections objects.
  • Demonstrable attention to detail and ability to follow complex instructions/workflows.

Whilst it may be desirable for someone to have photographic experience, with a well tested workflow, and potentially additional knowledge within any team, this may not be necessary as the skills required for most mass digitisation projects can easily be developed during the role. This may not necessarily be the case for a more in-depth digitisation project requiring a substantial amount of stacked photography from the outset.

Training

Whilst training and continued professional development is myriad and an ongoing process, it may be worthwhile to consider an initial program of induction (beyond any institutional induction program) that focuses beyond the collection areas/workflows that any digitiser may be working on. This should hopefully help any new starters to quickly familiarise themselves with a few key individuals and concepts that will aid future understanding and work e.g.,

  • Collection tours, including those beyond areas they will be directly working
  • Introductions to transcription/georeferencing
  • Introductions to taxonomy/typification/stratigraphy?
    • For those who may not be familiar with natural history/taxonomy it may be prudent to supply relevant reading material and support around the subject.

Following any period of induction, it is beneficial to be more targeted with any training in order to develop a digitiser’s skills such that these can surround those necessary within any workflow training e.g. collections handling, use of hardware and some software, including any collection management system used.

After initial workflow training, there is likely to be the need for continued supervision and support until they have reached a suitable level of independence. This period will vary depending on the complexity of any workflow and any level of pre-existing knowledge.

It is worth considering what the costs associated with any training program may be as, dependent upon the length and scope of any intended project, it may not be entirely necessary, or possible, to cover all the areas above. However, adding any amount of value beyond merely concentrating on workflow training should hopefully result in greater buy-in from digitisation staff and also provides a good foundation of skills that can be built on should funding allow for projects or programs to be extended or expanded.

Recruitment

There are a number of things to consider when looking into recruiting digitisers

  • Would this benefit from being a multi-stage process?
    • Does an application and interview cover all the skills you are looking for, or would additional practical testing (to examine e.g., specimen handling skills, a candidate’s ability to follow instructions, data handling and transcription skills) give a better indication of their suitability to the role?
  • Do you anticipate there being substantial numbers of applications for any positions advertised? If so, what capacity is there to sift these candidates in a timely manner? Would splitting this task between more people prior to convening to discuss candidates be feasible/possible?
  • What might be good interview questions and what are the sort of things that you are looking for in any answer? e.g,
    • Tell us about a collections-based project that you’ve worked on that you think is most relevant to this position.
      • Looking for demonstrable experience, hopefully quantitative
    • Can you describe a situation when you would contact a curator for assistance during digitisation?
      • Looking for e.g., accidental damage to a specimen, specimens arrived damaged, specimens with really bad verdigris or pins/herbarium material loose on sheets? Evidence of pests/IPM issues. Verifying data; ambiguity in the collection/drawer.
  • What are the types of data/information that might be associated with natural history specimens?
    • Looking for: Knowledge of primary collection data (where/when collected, by whom), taxonomic determinations, accession/registration data, potential type designations, stratigraphy, unique identifier, location within a collection
  • Have you ever discovered an error in your work? What did you do? What was the outcome?
    • Looking for: Attention to detail, communication, honesty, self-awareness
  • Could you explain what digitisation is, and give an example of how a specimen or object could be digitised?
    • Looking for: simple definition: creating digital data from a physical object; considerations for handling, understanding of workflows; capturing essential data; imaging useful but not always required. Rehousing - improving physical access prior to digitisation (if applicable); Time-keeping; Collection Management System usage
  • What are the benefits of digitised collections? *Looking for: Physically and digitally accessible, increasing data outputs, released as open access ergo public engagement, increased research potential; digital preservation - potentially also physical due to reduced handling in future.
  • Could you explain why it’s important to record digitisation methods and activities in detail?
    • Looking for: Replicable and usable methods, data rates - how long things took to digitise, recording problems - lessons learned. Planning for similar projects - associated benefits and risks.
  • Could you give an example of a time where you have demonstrated the ability to work on repetitive tasks for extended periods?
  • If there is the intention to include any practical/handling/data tests (effectively to test in a more ‘real world’ environment) will these be conducted directly following interviews or act as a secondary stage of recruitment? (This is likely to depend on the number of roles being recruited and the size of the applicant pool)
    • Are there specific tasks or skills that you would want to test for in these instances?
      • Is some form of specimen handling sufficient or would this be better tested through an adapted workflow to also test ability to follow instructions and ask questions if anything is unclear?
      • If there is not a suitably established workflow to test as above, is it feasible to ask candidates to handle specimens and ask them what issues or considerations they might make when working with that kind of specimen?
      • Some form of transcription task allows testing for attention to detail but may not be a necessary part of every interview depending on the anticipated tasks of the role.
      • Similarly, depending on the role, it may be beneficial to ask candidates to undertake some data tests to get an idea of their abilities when working with data and in spreadsheets, it may be beneficial to make candidates aware that they can use search engines as an aid during this kind of task

Authors

Peter Wing
Natural History Museum, London
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Version: 0.1
Changes since last version: Last Updated: 3 February 2023

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