Did you know the state of California was in a severe budget crunch, facing the reality of slashing many public services that help some of its poorest residents?
The University of California at Santa Cruz doesn't. Yes, that's right. They're going to spend as much as $68,000 on an archivist for The Grateful Dead Archive of Dead memorabilia and whatnot.
UCSC acquired the Dead collection back in April of last year, when it offered what the band's guitarist Bob Weir called "the sweetest deal" of the places they had considered to donate their many years worth of fan mail, posters, ticket stubs, art and other items. Other places had not seemed as enthusiastic about the collection and one apparently asked the Dead to pay to have it housed on its premises. In the real non-rock-star world, of course, people often have to pay for extra space to store the crap they don't want but can't bring themselves to throw away in non-university archive sites called "mini-storages."
The job sounds interesting, but the list of minimum qualifications is curious. Does it make sense that the person who's going to archive material for one of the most laid-back and free-flowing jam bands in rock music history has to have "excellent analytical, organizational, and time management skills?" And while the position does call for "expert knowledge in the history and scholarship of contemporary popular music, or American vernacular culture, preferably the history and influence of the Grateful Dead," it seems to require no awareness of what a long, strange trip it's been.
(H/T Erin O'Connor.)
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