Description:
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is hiring a Plant Collections Curation Apprentice!
Are you passionate about plants and the environment, excited about inspiring meaningful connections among people and nature in one of the most beautiful settings in Maine, and committed to supporting the Gardens’ Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility goals?
The Plant Collections Curation Apprenticeship offers a rich window into dynamic public garden collections management. This is an experiential learning experience that provides hands-on living collections, herbarium, and seed bank curation experience. The successful candidate will assist the Plant Sciences & Collections Department’s curatorial team at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
With the opportunity to work throughout the Gardens' diverse gardens and other curated spaces and engage with plants each day, the Plant Collections Curation Apprentice will be immersed in the daily operations and deep project work that form the backbone of plant collections curation. This will include working extensively in our plant records database, IrisBG, to ensure up-to-date collections records, mapping of living specimens, and creation of living plant and herbarium labels.
This apprentice will gain or reinforce insight and proficiency using our plant records database, IrisBG, a collections management software currently in use on five continents. The apprentice will use this database to reference, update, and store data about our plant collections, document our extensive holdings using digital photography and GPS technology, and gain hands-on curatorial experience across multiple types of plant collections.
This is a Seasonal, nine-month apprenticeship at 40 hours per week from April through December. Flexible start and end date.
$18.75-19.00 hourly, non-exempt
Seasonal employees receive personal and sick paid time off, paid holidays, discounts in our culinary programs and Gardenshop, and a Gardens membership.
The successful candidate is responsible for their own transportation to and from the workplace. Assistance finding housing is available.
Primary Functions:
With guidance from the Curator of Living Collections, the Plant Collections Curation Apprentice will:
- Input accession and deaccession data for the living collections, herbarium, and seed bank into the plant records database, IrisBG.
- Assist curatorial team with collections inventories.
- Use GPS to map living collections specimens and connect plant records data to plant location.
- Contribute information to Garden Explorer, the public-facing plant records portal.
- Create and place display plant labels and accession tags.
- Assist with photographing collections.
- Assist with creating and curating new voucher specimens of the living collections.
- Assist with development of plant collections tours for our guests.
Requirements:
Qualifications:
-
Bachelor’s degree (strongly preferred) or coursework or training in plant sciences, bioinformatics, geography/geographic information systems (GIS) or related field.
- Familiarity with the conventions of plant nomenclature.
- Experience identifying plants common in the horticulture trade in northern climates.
- Experience collecting and mapping spatial data using GPS and GIS preferred but not required.
- Experience using plant collection databases such as IrisBG or BRAHAMS preferred but not required.
Physical Requirements:
Approximate percentages of time tasks are performed in carrying out the essential functions of this position:
- 70% of time bending/stooping, squatting, reaching above shoulder level, kneeling, hand/fingers used for repetitive motion, hands/fingers used for fine manipulation, hands/fingers used for firm grasping, head/neck in rotational movements, head/neck in extension movements, head/neck in flexing movements.
- 30% of time in sitting position.
- Maximum load employee will be required to lift/carry is 35 or 50 lbs.
