Digital Collections Librarian

Department: Clark Library
Rank and Salary: Assistant Librarian to Librarian ($61,920 - $117,366)
Position Availability: Immediately
Application deadline for first consideration: April 30, 2024

UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library seeks an energetic, creative, culturally competent, and service-oriented professional to develop and administer an inaugural digital archives and asset management program. They will build systems and workflows for digital assets and manage the stewardship of digital assets produced through digital reformatting of analog collections of the Clark Library, and lead and implement the Clark’s strategies for the acquisition and long-term stewardship of born-digital archival collections. They will also identify and develop relationships with stakeholders at UCLA and beyond, and advocate effectively for the use of digital collections in support of the teaching, research, and civic and community engagement mission of the university. In these ways, they will expand the use of the Clark Library beyond its current audience and raise awareness of the Clark Library as a unique educational resource at UCLA for users from around the world.

Position Duties

As this is a new position that will develop and oversee an emerging area of focus for the Clark Library, we expect the incumbent’s responsibilities to evolve over time and to be determined by the incumbent in consultation with colleagues.

Specific duties and responsibilities include:

• Develops and implements policies, workflows, and infrastructures for managing born-digital materials based on disciplinary standards and best practices for ingest, storage, preservation, arrangement, description, and access to digital records on current and legacy physical media
• Selects, implements, and manages new systems, equipment, and software for digital preservation and digital asset management in legacy, current, and emerging data formats, and manage these tools’ compatibility with existing systems
• Appraises content on obsolete formats and legacy digital media and migrates data when necessary
• Integrates appropriate digital forensic tools to help ensure authenticity and preservation of archival materials when accessioning from a variety of storage media
• Creates and updates finding aids for born-digital archival collections
• Appraises, arranges, and describes digital, analog, and hybrid collections in accordance with archival best practices and priorities
• Develops policies and guidelines for digitization projects, in collaboration with library colleagues
• Plans for sufficient file storage and digital preservation actions, and ensures that metadata requirements are in place
• Provides support to Center/Clark colleagues and other partners related to the acquisition, use, rights, online presentation, and long-term preservation of digital collection assets
• Manages statistical reporting, stays informed about emerging technologies, and monitors rapidly changing standards and practices for digital content creation and management
• Manages descriptive, technical, rights, structural, and administrative metadata and the ingestion of assets and metadata into the UCLA Library Digital Collections, in collaboration with Digital Library Program (DLP) colleagues; and works with the DLP to coordinate work with the California Digital Library
• Collaborates with and provides advisory services, as appropriate, for librarians and other partners participating in the creation of digital humanities and other digital library projects
• Maintains knowledge of and trains colleagues on relevant current trends, standards, best practices, and technologies through professional activities such as conference attendance and participation, service in relevant professional organizations, and ongoing training
• Participates in collection development in collaboration with Clark Library colleagues
• Supervises students as needed
• Participates in grant-writing and grant implementation as needed
• Collaborates with Center/Clark colleagues and other stakeholders as needed on development and donor relations
• Participates in physical space planning as it relates to the library’s digital infrastructure
• Participates in outreach activities as needed, including social media and other forms of digital visibility and outreach
• Serves on university and library committees, task forces, and teams as needed
• Represents the Clark at UCLA and beyond in appropriate professional and technical forums

The successful candidate will be committed to promoting and enhancing diversity through engagement with and promotion of the UCLA Principles of Community [http://www.ucla.edu/about/mission-and-values].

General Information

Professional librarians at UCLA are academic appointees. Librarians at UCLA are represented by an exclusive bargaining agent, University Council – American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT). This is a represented position. They are entitled to appropriate professional leave, two days per month of vacation leave, one day per month of sick leave, and all other benefits granted to non-faculty academic personnel. The University has an excellent retirement system and sponsors a variety of group health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans in addition to other benefits. Relocation assistance may be provided.

Appointees to the librarian series at UC shall have professional backgrounds that demonstrate a high degree of creativity, teamwork, and flexibility. Such background will normally include a professional degree from an ALA-accredited library and information science graduate program. In addition to professional competence and quality of service within the library in the primary job, advancement in the librarian series requires professional involvement and contributions outside of the library, and/or university and community service, and/or scholarly activities. Candidates must show evidence or promise of such contributions.

UCLA welcomes and encourages diversity and seeks applications and nominations from women and minorities. UCLA seeks to recruit and retain a diverse workforce as a reflection of our commitment to serve the people of California, to maintain the excellence of the university, and to offer our students richly varied disciplines, perspectives, and ways of knowing and learning.

Description of Unit

The UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is a rare book and manuscript library that is open to all researchers who wish to conduct research with its holdings. The Library specializes in the study of England and Western Europe from the Tudor period through the long eighteenth century and from the mid-Victorian to late Edwardian periods, with a focus on Oscar Wilde and his circle. Other collection strengths include modern book arts; fine printing and the history of the book; and Montana and the West.

The Library is located in a 1926 Beaux Arts building, listed as Los Angeles City Historic-Cultural Monument #123. Situated on five landscaped acres in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, it was originally planned to reflect the Mediterranean influence of Robert Farquhar’s architectural vision. The Library organizes a variety of academic and public programs that bring our collections to a wider audience, including conferences, lectures, exhibitions, and workshops. The Library is part of UCLA’s Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, which also organizes chamber music concerts and theatrical performances, as well as a range of academic programs, many of which take place at the Library.
In keeping with UCLA’s primary purpose as a public research university to create, share, and preserve knowledge for the betterment of our global society, and in accordance with William Andrews Clark, Jr.’s vision for the library and its grounds as resources for the public good, the Clark Library is dedicated to making the shared cultural record as widely available as possible. We support UCLA’s mission of openness and inclusion and are committed to empowering broad research and engagement within special collections.

To learn more about the Clark Library, please visit https://clarklibrary.ucla.edu/.

To learn more about the Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, please visit https://www.1718.ucla.edu/.

Description of Institution

As one of the world's great public research universities, UCLA integrates education, research, and public service so that each enriches and extends the others. From its beautiful neighborhood campus in a uniquely diverse and vibrant city on the Pacific Rim, teaching and research extend beyond the classroom, office, and lab through active engagement with communities, organizations, projects, and partnerships throughout the region and around the world.

UCLA’s diverse community of scholars encompasses nearly 30,000 undergraduates pursuing 125 majors, 13,000 graduate students in fifty-nine research programs, and 4,000 faculty members including Nobel Laureates; Rhodes Scholars; MacArthur Fellows; winners of the Fields Medal, National Medal of Science, Pritzker Prize, and Pulitzer Prize; and recipients of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Golden Globes. UCLA ranks tenth in the Times of London Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, twelfth in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and fifth in the U.S. by Washington Monthly. The National Research Council ranks forty of its graduate and doctoral research programs among its top ten.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion are core values of the University of California and key components of the University’s commitment to excellence. The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California policy on discrimination, harassment, and affirmative action see: University of California – Policy Discrimination, Harassment, and Affirmative Action in the Workplace

Under federal law, the University of California may employ only individuals who are legally authorized to work in the United States as established by providing documents specified in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Employment is contingent upon completion of satisfactory background investigation.

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