Curriculum Vitae

Jim Safley
Web Programmer + Digital Archivist
jimsafley@gmail.com

OBJECTIVE

To explore the intersection of digital media and the disciplines of the humanities. To build tools that facilitate and enable scholarship, research, pedagogy, and learning. To learn new technologies, standards, and methodologies and use them to advance the digital humanities.

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

  • Object oriented, modular, and scalable web programming
  • Metadata standards, implementation, and exposure
  • Database administration, data migration, data model design
  • Digital and traditional archiving theories and practices
  • Experience in academic, non-profit, and government sectors

COMPUTER SKILLS

  • Platforms: Linux, Mac OS, Windows
  • Programming: PHP, Zend Framework, XHTML, CSS, Python, Django, JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, jQuery, MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Apache, Bash, SQL, DOM, XML, XML Schema, XPath, XSLT
  • Methodologies: OOP, software design patterns, relational database models, migration & conversion, API, REST, RPC, SOAP, semantic web, agile development, version control, authentication, unit testing, XSS protection
  • Software: Subversion, Git, Trac, ImageMagick, OpenOffice, Google Docs, Microsoft Excel/Access, Omeka, Zotero, Drupal, WordPress, MediaWiki, DSpace, Archivists’ Toolkit, Archon, Photoshop
  • Metadata standards & ontologies: Dublin Core, OAI-PMH, OAI-ORE, RDF/XML, RDFa, RDFS, Linked Data, CoinS, OWL, FOAF, SIOC, BIBO, EAD, TEI, CDWA Lite, METS, MODS, MARC, CSL

EXPERIENCE

Web Programmer + Digital Archivist, Fairfax, VA, 2002-present
Center for History and New Media (CHNM) , George Mason University
http://chnm.gmu.edu/

  • Contributed to the development of Omeka, CHNM’s flagship web publishing platform for cultural institutions; designed and implemented Omeka’s data model in accordance with metadata standards; wrote plugins that enabled data migration, import/export, semantic web, and various other features; assisted in writing core code, making enhancements, troubleshooting, debugging, writing documentation, and fielding user questions.
  • Managed the acquisition and publication of Papers of the War Department, a major digital editions project; migrated data from legacy database to a relational database structure; designed and implemented the database and content management system; supported the creation of the PWD public website; managed a large scale image processing project.
  • Developed procedures for the accession, cataloging, and preservation of thousands of digital collections and hundreds of thousands of digital objects for the September 11 Digital Archive, including collections from the National Archives, Library of Congress, National Museum of American History, National Guard, and the American Red Cross.
  • Designed, developed, and assisted in the coordination of database-driven websites and digital asset management systems for various projects and institutions, including the ECHO project, National Museum of American Jewish History, Mozilla Digital Memory Bank, Critical Infrastructure Protection Oral History Project.
  • Consulted on the handling of dark archives in digital format for the Birth of the Dot Com Era Project, a partner of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, a digital preservation initiative organized by the Library of Congress.
  • Researched digitization and digital preservation standards and practices for the book, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web (University of Pittsburg Press, 2005)
  • CHNM Project Links

Intern Records Manager, Washington, DC, 2001-2002
Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society, National Headquarters
http://www.pbk.org/

  • Organized in-house files into a cohesive and systematic whole; devised a formal catalog of records for use by Phi Beta Kappa staff; established system to retrieve records, answer reference requests, and perform related duties.
  • Sschedule a large amount of records for preservation and destruction; managed efforts to prepare records for acquisition into the Library of Congress, Phi Beta Kappa’s official archive.

Student Assistant Archivist, Fairfax, VA, 2001 to 2002
Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University
http://sca.gmu.edu/

  • Worked on the Virginia Heritage Project, a statewide project commissioned by the National Endowment for the Humanities to provide Virginia-related archival collections to the online community using Encoded Archival Description, an XML standard for marking up archival finding aids.
  • Arranged, described, and processed collections, developed finding aids and research guides, and composed front matter.

Center for Legislative Archives Intern, Washington, DC, Summer 2000
National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.archives.gov/legislative/

  • Processed the Center’s collection of original documents, assisted in the maintenance of several projects simultaneously, responded to researcher requests, provided historical research of congressional, national, and international events, and composed research papers on a limited time frame.
  • Assigned to projects solicited by the White House Historical Association, Tudor Place, and the Republican National Convention that required the evaluation of resources and composition of explanatory texts.

EDUCATION

(Incomplete) M.A. Applied History, 2003-2009, GPA: 3.89, Earned hours: 18
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

B.A. History, Minor: Classical Studies, 2002, Cumulative GPA: 3.57, Major GPA: 3.75
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

A.A. History Emphasis, 1999
Northern Virginia Community College, Woodbridge, VA