Report of the ACH Employment Committee

27 June 2006

The job committee continues to maintain the ACH Job Database, which sees a regular influx of postings from libraries, research groups, academic departments, and industry. We continue to glean most of these postings from the Humanist listserv, though we occasionally spot listings in other venues or receive them directly.

We also continue to maintain a list of mentors representing the various fields involved with digital humanities (we have about fifteen mentors at the moment). Requests from mentees come throughout the year, though there is usually a spike in interest prior to the annual conference. At the moment, we are a bit short on participants from the digital library arena who are willing to act as mentors, but we will try to do some recruitment on this front at this year's conference.

We were unfortunately unable to arrange any job-specific activities at this conference, but anecdotal monitoring of the mentoring program indicates that job seekers are pleased with the level of support they receive, particularly since the support comes directly from individuals in the mentee's field of interest.

At the 2000 meeting in Glasgow, the ACH Executive Session held a panel on the job market in digital humanities. It is perhaps time to revisit this issue in a public forum at the Council's convenience.

The Council should be aware that the Chair of this committee will be rotating off the Executive Council at the next election.

Stephen Ramsay, Chair ACH Employment Committee