Join our growing team!
By Jennifer Gunter King, Director of Rose Library
The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library seeks nominations and applications for our next Curator of African American Collections and Curator for Literature and Poetry Collections positions. If you envision building library collections that advance research and public interests as part of a dynamic research library, don’t miss the opportunity to apply for these signature positions within the Rose Library.
Emory University students in the Rose Library’s Teaching and Learning Studio.
The Curator for African American Collections and the Curator of Literature and Poetry will establish a dynamic and exciting vision for the renowned and respected African American Collections and modern poetry and literature holdings. As curator, you will play a pivotal role advancing collecting strategies that align signature collecting areas with emerging and evolving research interests at the University, and broader community interests.
Each curator will have the opportunity to build partnerships with academic departments, and bridge public scholarship with public outreach. As curator you will also lead efforts to establish collection strategies that account for the total costs of stewardship, in close collaboration with collections services and public services teams. If you are highly collaborative and will thrive as part of a team that is committed to advancing a culture of care, reciprocal community engagement and inclusion, this is the job for you.
Each curator will join a Collection Development team lead by Assistant Director Randy Gue, whose leadership of the team will advance a holistic view of collection building and community engagement and align collecting with key institutional priorities. Priorities include actively contributing to Emory University’s One Emory strategic pillars, and making Emory University an unparalleled destination for education.
The Curator of African American Collections will join the Rose Library at a critical time and will build relationships with faculty, graduate students, and community leaders to advance a forward-looking collecting strategy. This strategy will ensure that Black life in America is well documented and integrated in the research and cultural life of the University. It will also focus on the rich communities we serve locally here in Atlanta, as well as nationally and internationally.
The Curator of Literature and Poetry Collections will join the Rose Library at a key and critical moment for advancing an archive that supports research as well as promotes the importance that poetry and literature play in shaping and reflecting human experience.
More about the Mission of Emory University and the Rose Library
Emory University’s mission is to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity. The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library promotes access, learning, equity and justice by documenting, preserving and making accessible distinctive and diverse manuscript collections, archival records, and rare books. Our extensive holdings of historic and rare materials include the Emory University Archives, African American collections, literary and poetry collections, and collections that document political, cultural, and social movements. The library fosters original research and critical engagement with the past by drawing in diverse communities through innovative outreach, programming, and exhibitions. We document and share the voices and stories of both well-known figures and lesser-known individuals who have contributed to culture and society. Above all, the Rose Library gathers the stories of our community and helps all users engage with them. We share our resources with the Emory and Atlanta communities we serve, and with online users, so that people across the world can access the materials in our care.
Rose Library’s commitment to documenting African American history and culture began decades ago in partnership with the establishment of an African American Studies department. Through partnerships with faculty and advocates committed to uplifting the rich history of the Black story in America, our African American collections recount the beginnings of people of African descent in North America and extend through the present. These materials reflect the development of social, political, and cultural movements, literature, visual arts, dance, and sports. They document individuals, organizations, and events that celebrate the efforts of well-known public intellectuals and scholars, writers, and religious leaders. They also affirm the contributions of lesser-known, though equally important, community activists, cultural workers, and African Americans representing divergent backgrounds and perspectives.
Literature and Poetry Collections
The Rose Library’s modern poetry and literature holdings have been carefully curated over decades in close partnership with Emory University faculty, graduate students, and students. Reflecting Emory University’s ambitious research and teaching interests, the collections, which highlight the entire enterprise of literary production, include the papers of writers, poets, and critics, the records of publishers and presses, and rare books and literary manuscripts. Our expansive collections offer exceptional strengths in Irish literature, modern poetry, African American writers, Georgia and Southern writers, counterculture, and the Beats. Notable strengths include the expansive and comprehensive Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. In our reading room, you are welcome to read Seamus Heaney’s letters, browse Ted Hughes’s library, see Flannery O’Connor’s childhood drawings, click through Salman Rushdie’s computer, and explore much more.
Please reach out directly to Randy Gue (randy [dot] gue [at] emory [dot] edu) or Jennifer King (jgking3 [at] emory [dot] edu) with questions or with nominations. Prospective applicants can apply through the Interfolio.
