Jobs

JOB PURPOSE

This exciting new role will play a key part in the PLANTS Project – Plant Listing at National Trust for Scotland, a three-year programme to survey, and update the plant inventories at the 39 major gardens owned and managed by NTS across Scotland. Accurate plant records are essential, to ensure legal compliance, safe management of the collections, and for supporting visitor engagement and research. Working with the newly implemented IrisBG database, this project represents a major investment in our plant collections and will result in up-to-date plant records across the Trust. The completed inventory will help us safeguard the collections and will provide our property and gardens staff with a reliable, accessible source of collections information for interpretation and visitor enjoyment.

The purpose of this role is to deliver plant collection inventories as part of a regional PLANTS project inventory team on site at properties and to update and process existing accession data within the IrisBG database. The post will involve extensive travel within the region and occasional visits to other parts of Scotland for project meetings and the post holder will be expected to undertake extended periods of time away from home to facilitate this where daily travel distances are impractical.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Undertake plant inventories at properties during the spring and summer seasons using plant identification and research skills to create accurate lists of plants held within the plant collections.
• Process the data collected during the inventories matching established plants found with existing records, creating new records for unregistered plants, and checking the accession records in the database to ensure all data held is accurate and consistent.
• Undertake research into locally held property files and plant records to bring together background and supplementary data surrounding the plant specimens and process this in accordance with records held in IrisBG.
• Produce content for social media and contribute to a program of public and stakeholder communication promoting the project.
• Work with and induct project volunteers and property-based volunteers with a particular focus on facilitating the volunteer led plant photography aspect to the project.
• Work with gardens and property staff to schedule and carry out the inventories and to foster a new culture of record keeping with property teams.
• Engage with the visiting public on location at properties during inventories to promote the project and answer questions whilst working.
• Support gardens staff to follow Trust policies and procedures for the long-term maintenance of the plant inventory information in IrisBG.

Application Deadline: Friday 03/06/2022