Posted by Nate Jones on 01/16/2013 at 9:52 AM News

The Popdust Files: archivists, beyonce, emails, gq, job postings, jobs

One of the biggest revelations of Beyonce’s recent GQ cover story was the fact that Queen Bey controls her public image through a Nixonian fervor for self-surveillance:

Beyoncé’s inner sanctum also contains thousands of hours of private footage, compiled by a “visual director” Beyoncé employs who has shot practically her every waking moment, up to sixteen hours a day, since 2005. [...] This digital database, modeled loosely on NBC’s library, is a work in progress—the labeling, date-stamping, and cross-referencing has been under way for two years, and it’ll be several months before that process is complete. But already, blinking lights signal that the product that is Beyoncé is safe and sound and ready to be summoned—and monetized—at the push of a button.

How does one come to hire an archivist to collect and curate your every move? Do you network? Put up a post on Criagslist? Just steal a nearby paparazzi and firmly-yet-politely tell him he works for you now? As Library Journal found out, the answer is at once stranger and more mundane: You send an email to library students in 2011.

Digital Archivist for Beyonce

Parkwood Entertainment

No location given- probably NYC

Parkwood Entertainment is seeking a digital archivist interested in organizing and building an archive for a major pop star (Beyonce) starting with approximately 130 TB of footage with an eye to expanding further in the future. Candidates should have experience with servers and enterprise class storage and be able to recommend hardware solutions. Looking for someone to start immediately, pay is negotiable. Prospective applicants should e-mail resume and cover letter to: Annette Govan – Ag@Parkwoodent.com and William Kirstein – William.Kirstein@gmail.com

The job also went out on the Temple University listserve. If you were a library student in 2011 (and who wasn’t!) you are probably kicking yourself right now.

[Betabeat]