Program Director, Connecting Communities Digital Initiative

The Library of Congress is seeking a dynamic leader to guide an exciting new initiative to invite creative uses of the Library’s digital collections to highlight the histories and experiences of Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and other racial and ethnic minority communities across the nation. The Program Director for the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) is responsible for leading and implementing a four-year initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Program Director, reporting to the Director of Digital Strategy, oversees all program activity, including advertising and supporting short-term staff assignments, internships, and residencies over the four years of the grant and recruiting and supervising full-time grant-funded staff. This transformational leader should be prepared to represent the Library of Congress with passionate advocacy and diplomatic skill, and to lead conversations both inside and outside of the Library that celebrate a diverse American history, and lead and participate in difficult conversations about our nation’s past and present with respect and care.

As a leader both within the Library and in the broader community, the Program Director will convene and be supported by an Advisory board to gather expertise from national leaders and support networking between the advisory board and other members of the Library of Congress staff. The Program Director will oversee the production of events bringing together leaders and practitioners from Libraries, Archives, Museums and Higher Education institutions serving racial and ethnic minority communities and will oversee a regranting program from the Library. They will initiate or receive grant proposals for projects from Higher Education institutions and Cultural Heritage organizations across the country to re-mix, re-curate or re-imagine Library collections using digital technologies to encompass a broad, true, and diverse historical record. The grants issued through the CCDI program will be evaluated for their impact on local, regional and national audiences as well as for their ability to inform Library technology, collecting and policy decisions.

The Program Director should be prepared to work with leadership in the Library on securing continued support for the efforts of this grant-funded initiative, and for fundraising to support broad and sustained impact of the program.

Application Instructions