Audio Visual? A disclaimer...

My title is "Audio Visual Archivist." What is meant by "Audio Visual?"

It depends...

I work at a small university, where the Archives has a professional staff of 4.5, one (life-saving) paraprofessional, one full-time graduate library professional, and five part-time graduate student workers (history and library science).

My duties include: solicit, accession, manage, process, preserve, serve as reference archivist, and request manager for all non-paper formats except microfilm, but only if the microfilm is a preservation format of a manuscript or university collection (because those fall under their respective larger categories.

I am also the in-house go-to person for any technical questions including computer, hardware, software, and digital formats, though not specifically surrogates or born-digital audio visual formats (even though the main library has computer tech support). I also manage and train students in audio visual knowledge.

Most of my day is spent doing photo requests (corresponding, reference, searching, scanning, metadata). I rarely do anything with audio or moving image media, due to our lack of equipment.

This is my job.

Every Audio Visual Archivist I talk to has a unique experience, and different duties. Every job is defined differently. If you want to be work with any kind of non-paper format, ask a lot of questions first.