Job Description
Job Title: Senior Curator, York Castle Museum (YCM)
Reporting to: Chief Executive
Salary Range: YMT SCP 34-37, (£32,122 - £34,608) per annum
Contract: Permanent, 37 hours per week
Main Purpose of the Job
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To continue to build York Castle Museum’s position as one of the top UK
museums delivering an enjoyable, immersive and educational visitor
experience
To support the development of a transformational Castle Museum capital
project and programme
To manage York Castle Museum’s collections, ensuring appropriate
standards of collections care and management, documentation,
acquisition, rationalisation and storage
To continue the family friendly and visitor-focused engagement and
programming that York Castle Museum has won awards for
To represent York Castle Museum internally and externally building and
maintaining York Castle Museum’s reputation with collectors, partners,
stakeholders and professionals
Job location
The post will be based at York Castle Museum, but the post holder may be
required to work at other locations according to organisational requirements.
Core Responsibilities
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The Senior Curator York Castle Museum leads the History Team at York
Castle Museum.
The Senior Curator is responsible for the delivery of curatorial projects,
exhibitions and collection displays at York Castle Museum for YMT.
The Senior Curator is responsible for all aspects of Collections
Management across the history collections.
The Senior Curator works closely with the Museum Manager, and Facilities
Manager on all aspects of the building particularly security and
environmental requirements.
Lead the curatorial team contribution to the development and delivery of a
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major capital project at York Castle Museum: supporting the development
of creative storylines and research, strong exhibitions and use of
collections to deliver the vision
Enable the YCM major capital development with appropriate collections
management and storage plans
Management
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Line manage the History teams, Registrar, and project staff as appropriate
Co-ordinate and supervise freelance curators and technicians as well as
volunteers
Plan workload and set SMART objectives for staff members
Ensure development opportunities for the team.
Oversee expenditure on exhibition budgets and manage history team
budgets.
Represent York Castle Museum in external forums being an effective
advocate for YMT.
Represent the history team in wider forums within YMT.
Contribute to the continued development of the Trust by working with other
managers and attending wider management meetings as appropriate.
Develop effective partnerships with agreed organisations including
Universities, York College, the V&A, regional and national museums,
galleries and specialist groups, as well as forming collaborative projects in
line with the Trust’s Strategic Plan.
Collection Management
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Lead and ensure timely delivery of collections care and storage projects
that deliver to YMT’s Forward Plan including the relocation of objects
Contribute to the rationalisation of stores and development of a newly
equipped and refurbished off-site store.
Ensure that the collections are developed, managed and documented to
the appropriate Accreditation standards and YMT policies.
Enable access to collections through digital, physical, and intellectual
improvements working with colleagues in the digital team, volunteers and
external partners.
Deal with loans in and out from the history collections in liaison with the
Registrar
Ensure collections are handled, stored and treated to best practice
standards
Collection Development and Research
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Actively manage the history collections with respect to acquisitions and
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disposals in line with policies
Develop and nurture important relationships with private collectors
Initiate and supervise appropriate internal and external research projects
including collection related publications.
Ensure research takes place on the collections to support strategic
ambitions, with measurable public outcomes and in line with Headline
Priorities in YMT Forward Plan
Ensure the history team and partners internally and externally have
opportunities to develop the excellence of our knowledge about our
collections.
Ensure collections development and research furthers the wider capital
project vision
Programming, interpretation and learning
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Working closely with the Visitor Experience and Volunteers teams, lead the
History teams to deliver a creative and exciting temporary exhibitions and
display programme for York Castle Museum that refresh and maintain a
high-quality visitor experience on an annual basis
Ensure the development of exhibition projects that support longer term
developments and engage visitors and communities’ views of York Castle
Museum e.g. in 2018 - ‘Castle Lives’ and ‘People’s Choice’ exhibitions
Source and present new proposals to the monthly programming group.
Develop, curate and deliver exhibitions based on specialist knowledge that
will contribute to an engaging and updated visitor experience and museum
Interpret the collection through a programme of visitor- focussed
exhibitions, displays, interpretation projects and publications.
Deliver or contribute to digital interpretation, talks, enquiries, seminars
and events working closely with learning colleagues.
Work closely with the digital team to maximise potential of digital
interpretation and community engagement at the Castle e.g. supporting
popup experiments in digital interpretation at the Castle Museum in the
run up to the capital project development
Maintain and further effective partnerships with Higher and FE
organisations especially the University of York Institute for Public
Understanding of the Past and History departments
Contribute to our audience’s understanding and enjoyment of history
collections through contribution to the development of formal and informal
learning programmes, in liaison with the Learning team.
Working with colleagues in Learning, maintain programme of the
Communities galleries as appropriate to engage communities and young
people.
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Volunteer Programme
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Work with the Volunteers Manager to devise projects, recruit volunteers,
supervise and evaluate projects with the history collections including
‘Hands On Here’ and person to person interpretation
Funding
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Seek and secure additional funding through applications to Trusts and
Foundations, and other sources to increase resources available for public
programmes, research and collection management in liaison with the
Fundraising Manager
CPD
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Ensure that you maintain an active CPD programme for yourself and the
history teams
Other Responsibilities
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You may from time to time be required to undertake such other duties of a
similar nature which fall within the job purpose outlined above and which
are consistent with the grading of the post.
To promote and develop equality and diversity in line with YMT Equality
Statement.
Key relationships
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Chief Executive
Senior Management Team
Senior Curator Yorkshire Museum
Senior Curator York Art Gallery
York Castle Museum / York St Mary’s Museum Manager
Learning Manager
Assistant Curators of Learning
Facilities Manager
Digital Team
Volunteers Manager
Direct reports
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History Curatorial team including Assistant Curator of History, Collections
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Facilitators, Documentation Assistant, Display and Storage Care Assistant
Freelance and technical staff as appropriate
Registrar
Contacts with
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Chief Operating Officer
Head of Visitor Experience
Gardens Manager
HR Manager
All staff
External designers, architects, capital Project Manager and contractors
Person Specification, Experience and Competencies
Essential
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Degree in appropriate subject
Postgraduate Qualification in Museum Studies, AMA/FMA or equivalent
Significant experience of managing collections
Sufficient line management experience
Proven ability to take initiative, supervise, lead and motivate people
providing ongoing direction and support, communicating organisational
priorities
Ability to set objectives for self and team members, monitoring
performance against them
Experience of exhibition delivery and organisation, working with external
designers
Knowledge of documentation systems and conservation issues for history
collections
Excellent communicator able to speak easily in public
Expert knowledge of history or material culture with specialist interests
relevant to York Castle Museum site and collections
A strong commitment to collections’ interpretation and their potential to
stimulate audiences.
Committed to Continuous Professional Development for self and
colleagues
Well-developed ICT skills for documentation, presentation and office tasks.
Outgoing, personable and a team player
Problem-solving skills
Project Management experience and track record on significant projects
Experience planning and managing budgets
Commitment to equality and diversity and an understanding of how this
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commitment applies to this role
Ability to identify skill-gaps, training needs and develop succession plans
for the team
Desirable
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Experience leading collections storage and relocation projects
YMT has a strategic commitment to increasing its digital skill base. The
post holder should be able to demonstrate competence in one or more of
the following areas:
o Digital recording – e.g. photography, sound, video
o Social networking – e.g. twitter, facebook
o Contributing to online communities – e.g. linkedin
o Blogging or other online publishing – e.g. wordpress, tumblr
Published research
Qualification in Project Management
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Job Title: Senior Curator – York Castle Museum
Terms and conditions of service
Reporting line:
This post reports to the Chief Executive.
Salary:
The salary for the post is on a sliding scale YMT SCP points 34 - 37 (£32,122 £34,608) per annum.
Health:
Prospective employees must be cleared by the Occupational Health Service as
medically fit for employment by the Trust.
Probationary period:
Appointments are subject to the successful completion of a six-month
probationary period.
Annual leave:
The annual leave entitlement is 25 days per annum, increasing by five days after
five years continuous service with the Trust, plus public holidays.
Pension:
The Trust belongs to the Local Government Pension Scheme and all new
employees are enrolled. It is possible to opt out of the pension using the form
available at www.nypf.org.uk.
Hours of work:
The hours of work are 37 per week.
Period of notice:
The period of written notice required for you to terminate this post is 2 months.
The Trust will give you 2 months’ notice.
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