Digital Collections Strategist and Architecture Librarian

 

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS STRATEGIST AND ARCHITECTURE LIBRARIAN

Collections Strategy and Management

 (Librarian I or II)

 The MIT Libraries seek a forward-looking, enterprising, and enthusiastic professional to serve as Digital Collections Strategist and Architecture Librarian. This exciting new position will lead the Libraries’ development of MIT-hosted digital collections strategy and serve as the liaison to the Architectural Design, Computation, and Building Technology research groups within MIT’s renowned Architecture Department.

This position reports to the Head of Collections Strategy and Management (CSM), and as a member of CSM, contributes to holistic strategy and leadership in general collection development and management within the library, publishing and scholarly communities. Among the specialized responsibilities of the Strategist/Librarian are establishing policies and procedures for the selection of born-digital and digitized materials; developing an engaged and collaborative community of subject librarians to build digital collections; and leading the ongoing assessment of digital resources. The Strategist will collaborate with staff working across the organization who have complementary roles in such areas as acquisitions, archives, curation, digitization services, licensing, metadata services, and systems infrastructure. S/he will also coordinate intellectual management of a 7000-item special collection of fragile and historical materials related to architecture, art, and urban planning. 

As a collaborative member of the MIT Libraries’ Arts and Humanities Community of Practice in the Liaisons for Departments, Labs and Centers (LDLC) department, s/he will work in concert with other librarians to shape and deliver programs of instruction, reference, outreach, and resource selection to support MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. S/he will be expected to take an entrepreneurial and experimental approach to meeting community needs through collection and resource selection, developing value-added services and interfaces, providing assistance with managing research information through its life cycle, orienting scholars to an increasingly complex information environment, and increasing awareness of library services within the community. S/he will develop and maintain client-focused relationships with faculty, researchers, and students and will represent the needs of the Architecture Department and associated interdisciplinary programs.

The Strategist/Librarian will also participate actively in system-wide initiatives and serve on committees and task forces.  S/he will also be expected to communicate actively with fellow professionals through research, writing or presentations, and/or professional service activities.

QUALIFICATIONS:  Required: ALA-accredited MLS/MLIS or equivalent advanced degree in library or information science and a degree in architecture, art history, or the visual arts, or equivalent library experience working with architecture collections. Minimum two years’ experience in digital collection development and knowledge of digital content acquisition and management issues. Proven interest in research literature, publishing practices, and emerging trends in assigned areas and in developing and maintaining relationships with user communities.  Demonstrated initiative and an entrepreneurial, independent approach to delivering reference and instructional services to a user community and selecting resources.  Project management skills. Facility, mastery and independent exploration of technologies in service of user needs. Collaborative approach to problem solving and working across organizational boundaries. Strong analytical skills and experience with relational databases and spreadsheets.  Desired:  Degree in a field related to architecture and visual arts. Experience selecting and assessing research collections and working with vendors of scholarly research products. Evidence of potential to lead change and implement new services and work methods. Evidence of effective collaboration with faculty, colleagues, and students. Experience or training in marketing, instruction, or publishing.  Effective negotiation skills.

SALARY AND BENEFITS: $51,000 is minimum entry-level salary. Actual salary and appointment level (Librarian/Archivist I or II) will depend on qualifications and experience.  MIT offers excellent benefits including a choice of health and retirement plans, a dental plan, tuition assistance and a relocation allowance.  The MIT Libraries afford a flexible and collegial working environment and foster professional growth of staff with management training and travel funding for professional meetings. 

APPLICATION PROCESS:  Apply online at: http://hrweb.mit.edu/staffing/. Please include cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references. Review of applications will begin October 3, 2011 and will continue until position is filled.  MIT is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community and particularly encourages applications from qualified women and minority candidates.

Through a culture that encourages innovation and collaboration, the MIT Libraries are redefining the role of the 21^st century library – making collections more accessible than ever before, and shaping the future of scholarly research. Library staff, at all levels, contribute to this spirit of innovation and to the mission of promoting learning, discovery and the advancement of knowledge at MIT and beyond. “Reinventing the Research Library:  The MIT Libraries in the 21^st Century” is a short video that looks at how the Libraries are expanding beyond their traditional role to shape 21^st century research library --creating innovative services, reaching out to students and faculty, and leading efforts to increase global access to MIT’s scholarly work.

The MIT Libraries support the Institute's programs of research and study with holdings of more than 2.9 million print volumes and 3.1 million special format items, and terabytes of MIT-owned digital content. In addition, rare special collections, Institute records, historical documents, and papers of noted faculty are held in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Library resources and services are accessible to students and researchers through the Libraries’ website (http://libraries.mit.edu/), and library spaces are widely available for both collaborative work and quiet study. Traditional library resources are supplemented by innovative services for bioinformatics, GIS, metadata, social science data, and research data management services, as well as multimedia facilities and services for video production, conferencing, webcasting and distance education. The Libraries utilize the Ex Libris Aleph system for its public Web-based catalog and as the support system for user service and processing functions. DSpace@MIT, a digital repository developed over the past ten years by the MIT Libraries, serves to capture, preserve and communicate the intellectual output of MIT's faculty and research community. Other MIT repositories include: Dome, a second DSpace instance, providing access to a sizable image collection and other digital collections owned by the MIT Libraries; the MIT Geodata Repository for a diverse collection of GIS Data; and MIT’s DataVerse for licensed social science datasets. MIT Libraries maintain memberships and affiliations in arXiv, Association of Research Libraries, the BorrowDirect group, the Boston Library Consortium, DDI Alliance, DuraSpace, HathiTrust, CLIR/Digital Library Federation, the Coalition of Networked Information, EDUCAUSE, North East Research Libraries, OCLC Research Library Partnership, ORCID, and Portico.