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Director, Metadata Services

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Position description

Department: Cataloging & Metadata Center
Rank and Salary: Assistant Librarian - Librarian ($47,772 - $93,083)
Position Availability: Immediately
Application Deadline: July 23, 2014

Description of Institution and Library
One of ten University of California campuses, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is located in Westwood Village, approximately five miles from the Pacific Ocean near Santa Monica. Comprised of the College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools, the 419-acre campus features 163 buildings. UCLA has more than 4,000 faculty and academic staff and approximately 26,000 employees overall. Founded in 1919, UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs and has more than 28,000 undergraduates and 12,000 graduate students. Academic excellence, faculty distinction, and a comprehensive curriculum are hallmarks of UCLA, which is a member of the Association of American Universities. Among the faculty are fourteen Nobel Laureates, twelve Rhodes Scholars, ten National Medal of Science winners, a Fields Medal Winner, eleven MacArthur Grant winners, and seventy-eight Guggenheim Fellows. UCLA is California’s largest university and is a model for public institutions of higher education. As the seventh largest employer in the region, UCLA generates almost $14 in economic activity for every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA and generates an annual $11.9 billion economic impact for the state of California.

Consistently ranked among the top 10 academic research libraries in North America, the UCLA Library is comprised of 10 major libraries and 11 library wide departments including the Southern Regional Library Facility, the remote storage facility for the southern UC campuses, all of which report to the University Librarian. In addition, there are 12 affiliated library units located on the campus. There are approximately 105 librarians on the campus, and the UCLA Library has a staff of approximately 300, and approximately 400 – 500 student employees. The Library has an organizational structure that includes the use of teams in conjunction with departments and units. The library collection consists of more than 9 million volumes and more than 78,000 current serial titles and an aggressively expanding electronic resources collection. The Library’s annual budget is in excess of $44 million; more than $10 million supports the acquisition of print and digital material, and the library is part of the California Digital Library. The UCLA Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).

The UCLA Library is looking for a dynamic innovative leader with a solid record of guiding staff through unprecedented change. Reporting to the head of the Cataloging and Metadata Center the Director of Metadata Services will look beyond historical boundaries and traditional descriptive practices and content formats to imagine, advocate for, and deliver critical new services within the rapidly evolving realm of information, collection and content management, and discovery services. This position will work closely with the Associate University Librarian for Collections and Scholarly Communication and the library’s senior management team, Management Council, and other enterprise-wide Councils such as Collections Council, the Data Management Group, and the Digital Library Program to identify priorities, develop projects, and improve ongoing workflows. The incumbent will contribute strong strategic vision and focus and demonstrate visible commitment to staff to promote creativity, innovation, assessment and continuous process improvement and ability to foster effective relationships and communication with peers and stakeholders throughout the UCLA library and campus partners. This is a new professional position that will provide leadership and innovative vision, strategic planning and management for all the operational activities of the UCLA Library’s metadata services. This position provides an integral contribution to the Library’s collection management and scholarly communication services, and will work in concert with senior management in this area, as well as with other library units and campus partners.

The UCLA Library is committed to supporting academic excellence and diversity within the faculty, staff, and student body. The UCLA Library is searching for a creative metadata leader and thinker with strong experience leading staff through organizational and operational, and ongoing process improvement changes.

The Cataloging &Metadata Center is responsible for creating and managing the metadata for UCLA Library collections. Included in the Center’s scope:
• Tangible materials in all formats (books, CDs, DVDs, microforms, images, maps, software, etc.)
Rare books and special collections materials
• Electronic resources, both licensed and open access, including eBooks, ejournals and websites
• Materials in all languages
• Manuscript collections
• Ephemera of all types
• Social media
• Digitized materials, including the reformatting of print for preservation purposes
• Born digital materials, such as personal papers
• Research data sets
• Linked data
• Authority data and other support for the Semantic web

Vision, Leadership and Strategic Planning
• Provides the vision and leadership for the continued development of metadata services to foster innovation and collaborations
• Set the direction for and maintain an environment that challenges and encourages staff to identify and implement best practices and creative approaches for providing metadata analysis and resource description, including the exploration of transformative techniques for creating, manipulating, acquiring and linking to authority and bibliographic data, such as linked data, schema.org, and BibFrame
• Plans and coordinates the implementation of metadata services and initiatives
• Plans for the budget and resources required for the Program’s success

Operations and Management
• Provides broad oversight of program activities. Establish and oversee policies and procedures, and setting and monitoring goals
• Serves as a supervisor of academic and/or staff employees including hiring, evaluating, training, and developing direct and indirect reports
• Develops metadata-related competencies and training for staff serving in the program
• Manages, analyzes, and reports on staffing and resource budget needs
• Modifies the program in response to program evaluation and assessment, changes in user needs, and changes in available resources

Collaborations and Partnerships
• Evolves services, procedures, and practices to ensure consistency and integration with campus and Library goals and mission
• Collaborates with staff in other Library units to carry out activities and accomplish Library goals
• Serves as a resource to library staff by providing expertise in cataloging and metadata policies, procedures, and best practices
• Advises on metadata workflow and workload issues for the digital object metadata work that supports the UCLA Library

• Provides vision and leadership in planning for development and enhancement of the discovery and use of digital object services
• Serves on the Collections Council, Data Management Group and Digitization Task Force

Under general supervision of the Head of the Cataloging & Metadata Center, the Director of Metadata Services will:
• Provide expert leadership and guidance in selection of schema, thesauri, and data design for digital initiatives in the Library. Within the broader University community, serve as a departmental contact for metadata consultations by UCLA faculty and staff
• Define data elements and recommend data element usage for a wide variety of digital object types, as well as determine mapping among metadata schema
• Lead efforts to reuse and re-purpose data from multiple formats for a variety of users and stakeholders
• Strategize for the success of federated searching through use of controlled vocabularies and subsequent upkeep of headings
• Externally advocate for standards and tools needed locally
• Plan, manage, and review metadata for digital projects
• Coordinate workflow with other units, particularly the Digital Library Program and Scholarly Communication and Licensing, in pursuit of a steady flow of digital library project work into the Center
• Organize Center’s metadata workload and conduct training for library staff as needed
• Serve as a UCLA Library lead, to which Center and other librarians and staff can turn for leadership and project management expertise and advice when they take on digital library projects
• Supervise team staff and student employees including recruitment, orientation, training, and performance evaluation

• Provide training or continuing education in various areas of metadata and metadata management as needed
• Write and maintain documentation of policies and procedures
• Participate in the planning, development, and evaluation of services
• Participate in grant submission for projects and actively monitor grant writing initiatives for opportunities to incorporate good data practices into the proposals
• Contribute to overall policy, planning, problem-solving, and future directions for the Center

Required Qualifications
• ALA-accredited Master’s Degree in Library or Information Science or studies OR significant graduate-level coursework toward a Master's Degree in Library or Information Science OR equivalent education and experience (subject expertise combined with professional library education and/or experience)
• Experience in working with a broad range of developing metadata schema and standards used to manage and describe digital collections, e.g. Dublin Core, VRA Core, MODS, etc
• Demonstrated knowledge of current and emerging issues, trends, workflows, and best practices in the field, e.g. RDA, principles of authority control, PREMIS, rights metadata, and metadata design principles
• Willingness and ability to collaborate with other UCLA campus partners in providing metadata services
• Strong service orientation and interest in information users' values and needs
• Demonstrated proficiency and capabilities with personal computers and software, the Web, and library-relevant information technology applications. Working knowledge of standard computer office applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint or other productivity software
• Aptitude for learning new technologies and metadata standards
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a production-oriented environment and to develop and adjust workflow to service needs

• Ability to respond effectively to changing needs and priorities, by strategizing, prioritizing, and taking a flexible approach to working in a rapidly changing environment
• Demonstrated ability to plan, coordinate and manage projects
• Excellent analytical, organizational and time management skills
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and interpersonal skills
• At least two years of recent and relevant experience in supervision AND demonstrated ability to supervise, orient, and train librarians, staff and/or student employees
• Demonstrated ability to work creatively, collaboratively, and effectively both as a team member and independently and to promote teamwork among colleagues
• Commitment to fostering a diverse educational environment and workplace and ability to work with a diverse student and faculty population
• Capacity to thrive in the exciting, ambiguous, future-oriented environment of a world-class research institution and to respond effectively to changing needs and priorities
• Commitment to professional issues, demonstrated through strong interest in local or national committee work, research, publication, etc.

Desired Qualifications
• Experience with mapping and transporting of data
• Experience in project management, including planning, communication, and assessment
• Experience in developing ontologies and taxonomies
• Knowledge of archival principles and best practices
• Experience in and knowledge of national standards, specifically, application of the Resource Description and Access/Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2r), Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and classification, MARC21 formats for bibliographic and authority data
• Familiarity with XML
• Experience in cataloging materials through a cataloging utility, such as OCLC, in an integrated library system environment
• Experience in the use of electronic cataloging support tools such as Classification Web and Cataloger’s Desktop on the Web
• Familiarity with classification schemes and thesauri other than LCC, LCSH
General Information

Professional librarians at UCLA are academic appointees. This is a non-represented position. Within the UC System, most librarians are represented by an exclusive bargaining agent, University Council – American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT). As academic appointees, librarians 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. UC 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 is 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.

Candidates should apply by July 23, 2014 to be considered for this position. 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.

UCLA is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/ADA-compliant employer. 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.

Visit the UCLA Library Employment and Human Resources website at: http://library.ucla.edu/about/employment-human-resources.

Application Requirements

Document requirements
  • Cover Letter - Describing qualifications and experience.

  • Curriculum Vitae - Your most recently updated C.V. detailing education and relevant experience.

  • References - Names and contact information for three professional references, including current or previous supervisor; contact information only.