Digital Library Center Blog | UF

Yale is hiring for a Librarian for Digital Humanities Research and some of the job announcement information is below. The Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) still has an opening for a Digital Services Librarian and they’re awesome and working at FCLA means working with UF (and we’re great too!). While the two positions are very different, all digital library positions include some level of digital humanities research because as more stuff goes online, it’s even easier to do more with it. While a few old maps, newspapers, and photos may not seem to be essential humanities materials aside from their particular area relevance, having thousands of them together and cross-referenced with census information, disease trends, urban growth information, and more make them immediately humanistic in their ability to tell stories of their places, people, events, and relationships to others, and in their potential to be used for so much more.

The digital humanities librarian position at Yale looks like a wonderful position not only for what it offers, but also because its description reinforces what it means to be a digital librarian with preferred qualities including “curiosity about how technology is affecting research, and enthusiasm for collaboration in an exciting and dynamic intellectual environment.”

Yale University Position Announcement for Librarian for Digital Humanities Research
Digital humanities is an evolving specialization in librarianship that requires a combination of technical skill and strong background in the humanities, knowledge about how technology is transforming research, and energy for collaborating with students, faculty, and staff. We are looking for a creative, technically-grounded, visionary person to serve as an advisor, advocate, and implementer for digital humanities resources at Yale University Library. Reporting to the Head of Research Services and Collections (RSC), the Librarian for Digital Humanities Research will work closely with subject specialists, the department coordinator for research education, the Library Web Manager and other members of the Library’s technology department, and affiliates of the Collaborative Learning Center in order to provide the vision and strategic leadership for incorporating current and future technologies into the research activities of the humanities community at Yale University. The successful candidate will also participate in the development of the collection in an area related to his or her academic background.

Responsibilities
The Librarian for Digital Humanities Research will employ information and Internet technologies to help Yale-affiliated researchers in the humanities make use of the rich collections available at the Yale University Library. The Librarian for Digital Humanities Research will offer consultation for faculty members’ research, and will research Web technologies (such as Zotero, RSS, mashups, tagging, and social networking sites) and promote them, as appropriate, to Yale faculty and students and library staff. Develops and tracks personal and departmental technology goals in collaboration with the head of RSC, the Library Web Manager and the head of Web, Workstation & Digital Consulting Services. In addition, the Librarian for Digital Humanities will collaborate with the Library Web Manager and other units to develop databases and portals for disseminating Library resources in support of humanities research, and to design and implement an integrated next-generation technological presence for the Library in general; ensure that RSC web pages conform to guidelines and usability standards established by the library technology group; and provide a high level of office technology support to the department. The successful candidate will coordinate RSC’s participation in the implementation of a Library-wide web content management system. The Librarian for Digital Humanities Research will be professionally active and serve on select Library-wide committees, engage in research and service to meet the library requirements for promotion, and will assume collection development responsibilities appropriate to the successful candidate’s academic background. May be required to assist with disaster recovery situations.

Qualifications
Required: A graduate degree in history, literature or another humanities discipline, and an intermediate level of knowledge about web-based and related technologies. Preferred: A Ph.D. in a humanities discipline, and a master’s degree from an ALA-accredited program of library and information science. Appointment at the Librarian II level requires a minimum of two years of professional experience and demonstrated professional accomplishment. Appointment at the Librarian III level requires a minimum of 5 years of professional experience and professional accomplishment.

Demonstrably advanced skills in some combination of website management, text mark-up, graphics editing and database creation. Preferred: Candidate will possess, most importantly, a deep understanding of the research process and knowledge of the ways that new technologies are affecting the production of scholarship in the humanities, as distinct from other fields.  Preference will be given to candidates who demonstrate an exceptionally strong background in humanities, curiosity about how technology is affecting research, and enthusiasm for collaboration in an exciting and dynamic intellectual environment. Ideally the applicant will additionally have demonstrated knowledge in both front- and back-end technologies such as Web design and site management (including XHTML, CSS, graphics editing software), humanities technologies and standards (such as XML, EAD, and TEI), relational databases design and development, and server-side web-development (e.g., PERL, PHP, java, javascript, ASP or .Net).

Salary and Benefits
Rank and competitive salary will be based upon the successful candidate’s qualifications and experience. Full benefits package including pro-rated 22 vacation days; 18 holiday, recess and personal days; comprehensive health care; TIAA/CREF or Yale retirement plan; and relocation assistance. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Applications consisting of a cover letter, resume, and the names of three references should be sent by creating an account and applying online at http://www.yale.edu/hronline/stars/application/.  Please be sure to include Source Code #:  5826BR.

The Florida Center for Library Automation is looking for a bright, energetic, technophile to work in the Digital Library Services group. The University of Florida Libraries, which includes UF’s Digital Library Center (us), works with the Florida Center for Library Automation. FCLA coordinates library technology for all of the State Universy Libraries. For those not from Florida, our universities are all of the publics with the word “University” in them, but the universities aren’t tied as one institution (like the University of California at…) so FCLA works with all of us (FGCU, FIU, FSU, UNF, FAMU, USF, FAU, UCF, UWF, NCF, UF). While we (we as in UF) don’t get to see the folks at FCLA nearly enough, we do get to see and hear from them fairly often and they’re great.

FCLA is in Gainesville, but not next to the UF campus (where we, the DLC are), so there are no traffic and no parking woes for FCLA, and they can have events like “Take Your Dog to Work Day“. The official job description is online here and more official details are below. The parts of FCLA that I find most exciting are the Florida Digital Archive (cutting edge awesomeness!); collaborating across so many institutions and with so many great people; working with FCLA; being in Gainesville; and working with UF in particular, of course. FCLA is also a technical unit playing with an implementing technology and so they get to play with, test, and implement really wonderful tools while working with all sorts of great people across the state.

FCLA is a center of the State University System of Florida which provides automation services to the libraries of eleven public universities.  Working at FCLA combines the challenges of library and information science with large scale data processing in a fully networked, web-based environment. Application areas they work in involve:

• training and user support of library staff
• e-resource licensing
• metadata
• structured and full-text search and retrieval
• XML technologies
• web services
• relational database management systems
• next-generation integrated library systems
• digital image, audio, and multimedia

FCLA is located in Gainesville Florida, consistently rated one of the best places to live in the United States, and administratively associated with the University of Florida.  We offer a casual work environment, ample free parking, flexible hours, and full State of Florida benefits.