June 2011 Archives

Be part of a metadata team shaping the future of discovery & delivery library services at the CDL.

About you

You are a metadata analyst with the ability to understand how metadata is mapped and transformed as it travels between discovery, delivery, and decision support systems. You are deeply and creatively engaged with the digital library domain and eager to work in a collegial and collaborative environment like the CDL. You want to work on:

• Collaborative projects with partners such as HathiTrust and other digital libraries
• Melvyl , UC Libraries’ union catalog
• Development of local, national and international metadata standards

About us

We are the California Digital Library’s Discovery & Delivery Team. We’re planning and building the next generation of library services even as we make our existing systems better. We need you to help us make it happen. Read more about what we do and our strategic goals for the Discovery & Delivery Team on the CDL website.

Requirements

• Degree in information management/science, or a related field
• Minimum 1 year experience (or a combination of education and experience) in metadata analysis and support.
• Experience in recommending, designing and implementing metadata schemes for digital library projects.
• Experience cataloging in MARC.
• Experience with MARC, Dublin Core, METS and others.

Preferred

Experience in the transformation of XML documents using XSLT.

Get details and apply here: UCOP job website (requisition 20110291)

100% Academic Professional Position
Duties and Responsibilities: The University of Illinois Library conducts a variety of activities in support of digital humanities scholarship, including creation, delivery, curation and preservation of a wide variety of types of digital assets and tools. Reporting to the Technical Architect for Repositories and Scholarly Communication, the Digital Humanities Specialist will assist with the planning, implementation and ongoing production of these digital collections and scholarly initiatives, with particular emphasis on project design, digitization workflows, and content and delivery systems. The successful candidate will work across a number of humanities and Special Collections units and will be part of a team of IT personnel that develops and delivers repository and scholarly communication services. Examples of ongoing projects include a robust newspaper digitization program and a “triple-decker” nineteenth-century American novel digital conversion project, utilizing content management systems such as Olive, Archon, CONTENTdm, and locally developed databases. In addition, the successful candidate will contribute to the work of the Scholarly Commons in helping to articulate the relationship between new technologies and humanities scholarship to the community of humanists; in advising teaching faculty on the creation of digital objects and providing technical support for use of analytical tools; and in serving as an agent between content providers and the Library’s repository. This position is expected to evolve in tandem with the Library’s strategic goals and to experiment with new ways of supporting and enhancing the teaching, research and service missions of the University. The scope and responsibilities will shift in accordance with priorities established by the AUL for Information Technology Planning and Policy in consultation with IT staff and digital humanities stakeholders.

As an Academic Professional employee, the Digital Humanities Specialist is expected to use “investigation time” to pursue areas of his or her interest, not directly in support of an immediate program need, in accordance with the University Library’s policy on Investigation Time for Academic Professional Employees. Some investigations that originate in this manner may evolve into regular work assignments or production activities.

Qualifications: Required: Bachelor’s degree in an Information Technology field, such as Library and Information Science or Computer Science, and two years of experience working in a related field; knowledge of or experience with one or more of the following technologies: XML, XML Schema, XSLT, Dynamic HTML; experience in a library setting working with metadata encoded in one or more of the following schemas: MARC, MODS, METS, EAD, TEI, Dublin Core; experience with common digital image formats such as JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG, and GIF; experience writing and implementing Web scripts such as Perl, PHP, ASP, Ruby, Python, or VB Script; the ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a team environment; excellent organizational skills and a demonstrable ability to manage multiple priorities; the ability to remain conversant with newly evolving technologies; effective oral and written communication skills. Preferred: Master’s degree in Computer Science or Library and Information Science or related information technology field; background or degree in a humanities discipline; knowledge of relational database design principles and SQL; experience with newspaper digitization or other humanities digitization program; experience writing web applications using CSS, XSLT or JavaScript; ability to program interactive, database-driven web applications; experience in a library IT unit or working with library-specific applications; experience in planning and implementing programs or services; experience working with digital conversion vendors; knowledge of or experience with digital preservation strategies; experience in writing grant proposals.

Environment: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library is a leader in the delivery of user services, and active programs in information, instructional, access, and scholarly services help the Library to maintain its place at the intellectual heart of the campus. The Library also holds one of the preeminent research collections in the world, encompassing more than 12 million volumes and a total of more than 23 million items. The Library is committed to maintaining the strongest collections and service programs possible, and to engaging in research, development, and scholarly practice – all of which support the University’s missions of teaching, research, and public engagement. The Library employs approximately 100 faculty members, and more than 300 academic professionals, staff, and graduate assistants. For more information, see: http://www.library.illinois.edu/

The Library consists of more than 30 departmental libraries located across campus, as well as an array of central public, technical, and administrative service units. The Library also encompasses a variety of virtual service points and “embedded librarian” programs.

Salary and Rank: Salary and rank commensurate with credentials and experience. This is full-time academic professional position.

To Apply: https://jobs.illinois.edu/ Attach letter of application and complete resume, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses of three (3) references. to: Cindy Kelly, Head, Library Human Resources, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1408 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801. For questions, please call: 217-333-8169.

Deadline: In order to ensure full consideration, applications and nominations must be received by July 11, 2011

The 2011 Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum is seeking proposals for presentations, panel discussions, workshops, research updates, and hands-on, problem-solving sessions. The Forum is a working meeting where DLF members come together to do better work through sharing and collaboration. Participation is open to all those interested in contributing to and playing an active part in the successful future of digital libraries, museums and archives services and collections.

Managing digital content from cradle to grave is a complex challenge for library, museum, and archives operations. It requires creative and collaborative approaches. In that spirit, and to maximize the Forum’s benefit and better facilitate the community’s work, the Forum’s schedule will provide many opportunities to actively engage and network.

For the 2011 Fall Forum, the Program Planning Committee is requesting proposals within the broad framework of digital collections and their effect on libraries, museums and archives services, infrastructure, resources, and organizational priorities. The topics under consideration are:

• Data management and the roles institutional services play
• Data management policies
• Relationship between and possible convergence of digital humanities and digital libraries
• Open-source tools
• Preservation of born digital content
• Examination of digital library systems
• Linked Open Data: continuing the LOD-LAM conversation
• The Digital Public Library of America effort and other large-scale digital libraries
• Digital libraries and personal digital archives
• Strategic collaboration bringing libraries, museums and other cultural heritage institutions together

We welcome proposals on these and other topics from current community members and non-members who are interested in joining the DLF community.

Session genres include:

• Presentations and Panels: Traditional lecture format with question-and-answer sessions.
• Workshops:
 In-depth, hands-on training about a tool, technique, workflow, etc. You can recommend a topic or trainer, or you can volunteer to share your own expertise.
• Research Updates:
 An opportunity for those working in digital collections research efforts to present their preliminary findings for community feedback and discussion.
• Working Sessions:
 Creative problem solvers, including project managers, developers, and/or administrators, gather to address a specific problem. This does not have to be a computational problem. The approach can be applied to workflow issues, metadata transformations, or other complex problems that would benefit from a collective, dynamic solution approach.
• Demos: Variation on a poster session or lightning talks. Presenters will demonstrate tools or services they have developed or are using in their digital library environment.

Proposal Submission Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures

Complete proposals should be submitted using the online submission form by  July 22, 2011 
July 29, 2011. Proposals must include a title, session leader, session genre, proposal description (maximum 400 words), and proposal abstract (maximum 100 words). After an initial review by the Program Planning Committee, all proposals will be posted on the DLF website for community polling. Those submitting complete proposals will be notified of their status by September 9, 2011. Presenters will be guaranteed a registration place.

The 2011 Fall Forum will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Baltimore, MD October 31–November 2, 2011. More information about the 2011 Fall Forum can be found at http://www.diglib.org/2011forum/.

DLF seeks a part-time employee to work directly with DLF’s director in a supporting role.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the digital library community while assisting with major research projects associated with Linked Data, the Digital Public Library of America, and the American Research Libraries/DLF e-Science Institute.

Candidates will provide executive administrative support, manage projects, logistics and meetings, and have an understanding of the digital library community. Candidate should possess working knowledge of, or a demonstrated aptitude to learn WordPress. Knowledge of Google Groups, and social media tools is preferred.

This is a part-time position of 24 hours/week. Preference will be given to candidates who can be in our Washington D.C. office occasionally, although much of the work may be accomplished remotely.

By June 17, 2011 please send a resume and cover letter to the attention of:

Leslie Eagle
CLIR Meeting Coordinator
1752 N Street NW Ste 800
Washington, D.C. 20036

e-mail: leagle@clir.org

DLF seeks a 20 hour/week intern for two months this summer. The intern will work directly with DLF’s director. While we prefer a local candidate who can be in our Washington D.C. office occasionally, we will consider candidates who are able to telecommute.

This is an excellent opportunity for a library student to learn about how a library service organization works and to gain project management experience through large scale meeting planning and communications tracking. Intern will be involved with logistics and planning for the DLF 2011 Fall Forum and other DLF related meetings, and will have conference fees waived if he/she would like to attend these meetings. We are looking for a motivated, organized, detail oriented self-starter who is interested in the digital library field.

Preference will be given to those candidates with a working knowledge of WordPress, Google Groups, and social media tools.

A $2500 stipend is available for the internship.

By June 17, 2011 please send a resume and cover letter to the attention of:

Leslie Eagle
CLIR Meeting Coordinator
1752 N Street NW Ste 800
Washington, D.C. 20036

e-mail: leagle@clir.org

The Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the lead institution for Data Conservancy, are hiring two data management planning consultants and a data management planning service manager as part of a new service to be launched July 1. This data management planning service will use Data Conservancy technology and offer both pre-award consultation and post-award data management for JHU PIs of NSF grants. JHU PIs can use this service to develop their two-page data management plans according to NSF guidelines and specific curation capabilities available through this service. For successful proposals, JHU PIs will be able to deposit their data into a preservation ready infrastructure based on technology developed through the first 18 months of prototyping through the Data Conservancy. Through this infrastructure, JHU PIs will be able to share their data, search and query the data and, when appropriate, provide long-term access through the preservation framework.

The first two consulting positions have a start date of July 1. The service manager is scheduled to begin October 1. The job descriptions for the data management planning consultants are available at:

https://hrnt.jhu.edu/jhujobs/job_view.cfm?view_req_id=48528&view=sch

https://hrnt.jhu.edu/jhujobs/job_view.cfm?view_req_id=48347&view=sch

The job description for the manager of data management planning services is available at:

https://hrnt.jhu.edu/jhujobs/job_view.cfm?view_req_id=48349&view=sch

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded CLIR/DLF a $46,000 planning grant to develop a prototype for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The prototype will be submitted to the DPLA “beta sprint,” which seeks “ideas, models, prototypes, technical tools, [or] user interfaces . . . that demonstrate how the DPLA might index and provide access to a wide range of broadly distributed content.”

Rachel Frick, director of the DLF program, will manage the project and serve as co-principal investigator with Carole Palmer, professor and director of the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

Palmer will lead UIUC staff in developing the prototype, which will demonstrate how the IMLS Digital Collections and Content Registry (DCC) and its research and development activities can serve the DPLA as a critical mass of base content, as well as an aggregation model. A functional prototype will be produced in combination with a set of static wireframes and demonstrations, showing how DCC’s advances in content, metadata, user experience, and infrastructure can be leveraged for the DPLA.

Palmer and Frick will work closely with Geneva Henry, executive director of the Center for Digital Scholarship at Rice University, who will produce a report that reviews current literature pertaining to the technical aspects of large-scale collection aggregations and federations. The report will review and compare the system architectures, content types, and scale of content of the DCC, Europeana, the National Science Digital Library, and other aggregations to shed light on how and why large-scale aggregation projects succeed or fail. The report will also identify potential content providers for the DPLA, and will estimate the time, effort, and other costs required to ingest these resources into the prototype.

“This is an important strategic grant,” said CLIR President Chuck Henry. “The DPLA can and should become a fundamental asset for the nation—a genuine common good that can benefit students, researchers, and citizens at large, to grow over time to become a new and essential environment for teaching and learning. The prototype will be developed with this larger mission in mind: building a digital public library that responds to our curiosity and our myriad intellectual interests, and that reflects the complexity and power of our cultural heritage.”

“The DPLA Steering Committee is delighted that the Mellon Foundation is supporting CLIR in its work as part of the beta sprint,” said John Palfrey, chair of the DPLA’s Steering Committee. “CLIR has been a leader in thinking about and building the future of libraries. Its participation in the DPLA to date has been crucial and we look forward to seeing what they come up with as part of the beta sprint process.”

The Digital Public Library of America initiative was launched in December 2010 to explore strategies for developing an open, distributed network of comprehensive online resources that would draw on the nation’s living heritage from libraries, universities, archives, and museums in order to educate, inform and empower everyone in the current and future generations.