Project Curator for Women in Politics Collections, UC Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

California Academic & Research Libraries; Bancroft (WI); On-site; USD 83,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

The Bancroft Library in Berkeley seeks a Curator for its Women in Politics collections to steward and develop holdings spanning the 19th century to present. The Associate Librarian, Temporary, will build relationships with donors and stakeholders and advance access, teaching, and public programs.

Reporting to the Bancroft Library Director, the role collaborates with Public Services, Technical Services, and UC Berkeley Library partners to ensure discoverability and impact of the collections.

Responsibilities

• Work collaboratively with curatorial colleagues, Oral History Center staff, and partners across the UC Berkeley Library system to build and steward collections of lasting importance, relevance, and interconnectivity, identifying historic gaps and areas of strategic opportunity across the broad chronological and geographic scope of the library’s holdings that document women in politics.
• Appraise and select materials for acquisition through donation or purchase across manuscripts, archives, visual materials, digital media, and all formats of print materials.
• Keep abreast of evolving legal and ethical considerations for provenance, intellectual property rights, privacy, and respectful stewardship of cultural heritage materials.
• Apply resource-sensitive collecting practices through the understanding and use of Total Cost of Stewardship tools and frameworks.
• Foster collaborative relationships with communities and individuals whose histories are documented in the collections, including activists, elected officials, political organizations, and social and civil rights movements and organizations.
• Partner with Bancroft Library leadership, the Friends of The Bancroft Library, and UC Berkeley Library Development Office to build and nurture philanthropic support.
• Collaborate with Bancroft Technical Services on appraisal and accessioning, cataloging, archival processing, and appropriate levels of arrangement and description to ensure that collections documenting women’s political engagement are discoverable and accessible to researchers.
• Work with Bancroft Public Services colleagues to foster collection use by faculty, students, researchers, and the general public. Participate in the fellowship selection committee.
• Participate in public and research services activities, and ensure excellent service, friendly reception, and positive research interactions for all researchers.
• Draw on the library’s extensive holdings documenting women’s political history to prepare and lead instruction sessions, including material evaluation and selection, lesson plan development, and collaboration with faculty on assignments and learning outcomes.
• Promote inclusive teaching practices and accessibility in

Job description

2026-07-28 by CARL Web Coordinator

Special Collections/Archives, Subject Specialist/Liaison, Temporary

Project Curator for Women in Politics Collections – The Bancroft Library

Position overview

Position title: Associate Librarian, Temporary Status

Salary range: The UC academic salary scales set the minimum pay determined by rank and salary point at appointment. See the following table(s) for the current salary scale(s) for this position: https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2026-27/represented-july-2026-scales/t26-b.pdf. A reasonable full-time salary estimate for this position is $83,162 to $95,010.

Percent time: 100%

Anticipated start: As early as September 2026. Exact start date negotiable.

Position duration: Two years with the possibility of renewal for a third year based on performance and availability of funding

Position Description

The Bancroft Library is hiring a Curator for its Women in Politics collections to steward, develop, and interpret its holdings of manuscripts, archives, and other materials documenting the history of women in politics in the United States. The Curator, with the guidance of the Bancroft Director, will develop a collections strategy that identifies and scopes strategic priorities for Bancroft’s collections related to women in politics from the 19th century onward. They will also engage in research into the library’s existing holdings to identify collection strengths, gaps, and areas for growth. As part of planning for the future of this collecting area, the curator will identify and build relationships with donors, political organizations, cultural institutions, and other key stakeholders.

As part of their work to engage with existing collections, the curator will work collaboratively with colleagues in Bancroft Technical Services and Public Services to offer guidance and support in making existing collections accessible and usable, partner with instructors and library colleagues in teaching with the collections, engage in scholarly outreach, and participate in research services activities. The curator will also coordinate with the Oral History Center and curatorial colleagues to ensure cohesive stewardship of collections, and collaborate with partners across the UC Berkeley Library system and campus to foster engagement with the collections.

The Bancroft Library is committed to a collecting agenda that foregrounds diverse perspectives and historical voices, activating collections for multiple audiences. This position reports to The Bancroft Library Director and is part of a curatorial team that includes the University Archivist, the Theresa Salazar Curator of the Western Americana Collections, the Curator of Latin Americana Collections, the Curator of Pictorial Collections, and the Curator of Rare Books and Literary Manuscripts.

Summary Of The Collections

The Bancroft Library holds extensive collections documenting the history of women in American politics, with particular strength in California and the western United States. Spanning the mid-nineteenth century to the present, the holdings include personal papers, organizational records, campaign materials, and feminist press publications covering suffrage, women’s entry into elected and appointed office, party politics, community organizing, and the intersections of women’s political work with civil rights, labor reform, environmental protection, peace, and reproductive rights. Collections are especially rich for the period from the early twentieth-century suffrage campaigns through the feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

Notable archival holdings include the papers of Senator Barbara Boxer, the Marjorie H. E. Benedict papers on Republican Party organizing, the Vera Smith Schultz papers on local officeholding in Marin County, and the papers of NOW California State Coordinator Sandra Farha, along with materials documenting suffrage activist Selina Solomons, Senate candidate Anne Henrietta Martin, the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville, and the Berkeley Women’s Studies Movement Archive.

These holdings are complemented by the Library’s Oral History Center, which holds oral histories of Bay Area female leaders, including but not limited to suffrage activists, early feminists, political fundraisers, organizers, and elected officials. The Center remains committed to expanding this body of work, offering rich opportunities for collaboration.

Job Responsibilities

Collection Development and Stewardship:

• Work collaboratively with curatorial colleagues, Oral History Center staff, and partners across the UC Berkeley Library system to build and steward collections of lasting importance, relevance, and interconnectivity, identifying historic gaps and areas of strategic opportunity across the broad chronological and geographic scope of the library’s holdings that document women in politics.
• Appraise and select materials for acquisition through donation or purchase across manuscripts, archives, visual materials, digital media, and all formats of print materials.
• Keep abreast of evolving legal and ethical considerations for provenance, intellectual property rights, privacy, and respectful stewardship of cultural heritage materials.
• Apply resource-sensitive collecting practices through the understanding and use of Total Cost of Stewardship tools and frameworks.

Donor And Community Relations:

• Foster collaborative relationships with communities and individuals whose histories are documented in the collections, including activists, elected officials, political organizations, and social and civil rights movements and organizations.
• Partner with Bancroft Library leadership, the Friends of The Bancroft Library, and UC Berkeley Library Development Office to build and nurture philanthropic support.

Technical Services Collaboration:

• Collaborate with Bancroft Technical Services on appraisal and accessioning, cataloging, archival processing, and appropriate levels of arrangement and description to ensure that collections documenting women’s political engagement are discoverable and accessible to researchers.

Research Services And User Support:

• Work with Bancroft Public Services colleagues to foster collection use by faculty, students, researchers, and the general public. Participate in the fellowship selection committee.
• Participate in public and research services activities, and ensure excellent service, friendly reception, and positive research interactions for all researchers.

Teaching And Instruction:

• Draw on the library’s extensive holdings documenting women’s political history to prepare and lead instruction sessions, including material evaluation and selection, lesson plan development, and collaboration with faculty on assignments and learning outcomes.
• Promote inclusive teaching practices and accessibility in