Special Collections Librarian

Reporting to the Head, Special Collections & University Archives Department, the Special Collections Librarian has curatorial responsibility for rare book and manuscript collections.

General responsibilities include:

• Developing and managing collections, sensitively building upon existing strengths and exploring new areas for development, including books, manuscripts, media, and other formats.
• Developing donor and dealer relationships, and cultivating campus and community partners.
• Generating and coordinating applications for grant funding.
• Setting priorities for collection processing and cataloging.
• Collaborating with colleagues working in areas of collection development, archival and manuscript processing, rare books cataloging, preservation, and digitization.
• Providing reference services, participating in instruction sessions and outreach activities, and supporting day-to-day operations.
• Participating in Libraries’ initiatives outside of Special Collections & University Archives by serving on Libraries’ and campus committees and contributing to other relevant activities and events.
• Maintaining a course of personal professional development through active participation in rare book, manuscript, and archives professional associations or other professional activities external to the Libraries.

Required Qualifications:

• Graduate degree in library science from an ALA accredited institution.
• Demonstrated ability to work creatively in a rapidly changing environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge of or experience with emerging trends in rare book and manuscript librarianship.
• Demonstrated ability to work productively and sensitively with library and university colleagues, faculty, students, researchers, and donors.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a team environment where consultation, flexibility, collaboration and cooperation are essential.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to diversity in the workplace or community.
• Experience or demonstrated knowledge of digital collections and digital humanities concepts and techniques.
• Demonstrated interest in professional development that will enhance the candidate’s value to the Libraries, the University, the profession, or the scholarly community.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience in a Special Collections, archives, or museum environment
• Experience or demonstrated knowledge of the rare book and manuscript trade
• Experience or demonstrated knowledge of standards and best practices for describing and cataloging rare books and manuscripts, including the use of content management systems such as Archon.
• Reading knowledge of one or more Western European languages other than English.

Salary and appointment: Appointment will be made at the Librarian level with a salary range of $43,000 to $46,000. Start date is negotiable. The University of Iowa offers an attractive package of benefits including 24 days of paid vacation per year, your choice between two retirement plans and two University of Iowa health insurance plans, dental insurance, pre-tax child and health care spending accounts, and additional options.

The University of Iowa Libraries: The University of Iowa library system consists of the Main Library, the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences and a number of branch libraries. The Libraries has more than 5 million volumes including thousands of electronic resources and coordinates the development and maintenance of the University’s locally-created open access digital resources including the Iowa Digital Library, featuring close to a million digitized texts, images, and audio and video recordings, as well as Iowa Research Online, our institutional repository. Our Special Collections include over 200,000 rare books, ranging in age from the 15^th century to newly created artists’ books.

Library systems are built on a mix of open source, locally developed, hosted services, and vended applications primarily from Ex Libris, OCLC, and Microsoft. The University of Iowa is a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), ARL, OCLC, CRL, SPARC, CNI, CLIR, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, and Portico. The Libraries provides a program of support for professional development activities and its staff members are actively engaged in national cooperative efforts.

The University and Iowa City: A major research and teaching institution, the University of Iowa offers internationally recognized programs in a diverse array of academic, medical, and artistic disciplines, from otolaryngology to fiction writing, printmaking to space science, hydraulic engineering to dance. The University consists of a faculty of 2,000 and a permanent staff of 13,000 serving 30,500 students, more than 40% of whom are from out of state and close to 10,000 of whom are registered in graduate and professional degree programs. Approximately 9% of the University’s faculty and staff and 10% of its student body are members of minority groups, and 8% of the students are from foreign countries.

The University of Iowa is home to the Writers’ Workshop, the oldest graduate creative writing program in the country, and the blueprint for many of the creative writing programs that now thrive on campuses worldwide. It is also home to the International Writing Program where, since 1967, over a thousand writers from more than 120 countries have participated. The University has recently instituted a program in creative writing in Spanish. Finally, UNESCO designated Iowa City as the world’s third City of Literature in 2008.

Iowa City is a community of some 68,000 people (more than 150,000 live in the surrounding area) with excellent educational, recreational, and cultural advantages. It is consistently cited in the national media as a city with an excellent quality of life. The city is readily accessible via interstate highways and a major airport is only 30 minutes away. The community is growing in its diversity; within the Iowa City Community School District, 33% of the students are minority, with 17% identifying as African-American, 9% as Latino/Hispanic, 7% as Asian-American, and .4% as Native American during the 2011/12 school year.

Application Procedure: To apply for this position, please visit the University of Iowa Jobs@UIOWA website at http://jobs.uiowa.edu. To help facilitate your application process, note the requisition number 61096. Applications must be received by July 27, 2012.

THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER. WOMEN AND MINORITIES ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY.

For more information about the University of Iowa Libraries and community, please see http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/about/employment/