The MIT Libraries seek an enterprising and enthusiastic librarian to provide high-quality, trusted information services and operational support to the Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center and MIT’s Textbook Information Provisioning and Library course reserves services. This exciting new dual-role position will provide an early-career librarian the opportunity to plan and contribute to key library service programs and to develop library service, leadership and relationship management skills within a collaborative and dynamic academic research library environment.
Reporting to the Information Services Librarian this position will have two equally important areas of focus. As DOT Liaison to the Volpe Technical Library and Information Center (VTLIC), the librarian facilitates access to an extensive collection of scientific, technical, social science, economic and regulatory material in the transportation field for researchers and staff at the Volpe Center, a constituency of users located near the MIT campus with interests in Transportation, Engineering, Planning and other MIT disciplines. S/he provides the center with a full array of information services including timely and responsive reference service, literature searching and document delivery services as well as interlibrary borrowing and photocopy services, and on-site access to resources for researchers as required. As DOT Liaison s/he will work with the Libraries’ Science & Engineering Community of Practice to stay abreast of resources, services or tools that would benefit the Volpe Center user community. As Course Support Librarian this position supports the sharing of required and recommended textbook information between MIT faculty, students, the MIT Libraries course reserves services and the MIT Coop. In this role s/he provides expertise to faculty, students and other library staff for aspects of copyright law and Libraries’ policies pertaining to course reserves, electronic course reserves, and interlibrary loan/delivery practices. S/he ensures that questions regarding course reserves and TIP services are responded to in a timely manner and helps to ensure that business operations issues or user requests regarding the TIP form are escalated or resolved. The Librarian also oversees ID&LA’s Reserves and Course Support team, to ensure that electronic and print course reserves support is efficient, effective, and responsive to community needs. In this dual role, the DOT Liaison and Course Support Librarian gathers and analyzes data and collaborates with staff and partners to assess services and identify areas for potential improvements and service alignments. S/he expands skills and current awareness of issues and new technologies in the organization and delivery of collections and services and applies them as appropriate. S/he will also participate actively in system-wide initiatives and serve on committees and task forces.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Required: ALA-accredited MLS/MLIS plus one year related work experience in a library or customer service environment. Solid experience with automated library systems and with standard computer software (MS Word, Excel, e-mail and calendar) and a keenness for learning and mastering new systems and technologies. Strong commitment and ability to deliver high-quality customer service. Excellent interpersonal skills including ability to work collaboratively and interact successfully with a diverse staff and user community. Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, and presentation skills for delivering information and training in person or through the web. Superior administrative and organizational skills including ability to be detail- and process- oriented, flexible and to tolerate ambiguity. Well-developed ability to independently and collaboratively identify, analyze and follow-through on problems, and to exercise good judgment. Demonstrated initiative and desire to learn. Experience in training and guiding the work of others. Physical stamina for working across a de-centralized library system, and handling library materials. Tolerance for exposure to dust. Desirable – Experience in an academic and/or research library. Experience with Aleph, ILLiad or other relevant library technologies. Familiarity with science and technology information resources and tools. Familiarity with copyright law as it applies to reserves or interlibrary loan/delivery practices. Experience supervising or leading work teams.

SALARY AND BENEFITS:
$51,000 is minimum entry-level salary. Excellent benefits including a choice of health and retirement plans, a dental plan, tuition assistance and a relocation allowance. The MIT Libraries afford a flexible and collegial working environment and foster professional growth of staff with management training and travel funding for professional meetings.

APPLICATION PROCESS:
Apply online at: http://hrweb.mit.edu/staffing/. Please include cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references. Review of applications will begin July 30, 2012 and will continue until position is filled. MIT is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community and particularly encourages applications from qualified women and minority candidates.
Through a culture that encourages innovation and collaboration, the MIT Libraries are redefining the role of the 21st century library – making collections more accessible than ever before, and shaping the future of scholarly research. Library staff, at all levels, contribute to this spirit of innovation and to the mission of promoting learning, discovery and the advancement of knowledge at MIT and beyond. “Reinventing the Research Library: The MIT Libraries in the 21st Century” is a short video that looks at how the Libraries are expanding beyond their traditional role to shape 21st century research library –creating innovative services, reaching out to students and faculty, and leading efforts to increase global access to MIT’s scholarly work.

The MIT Libraries support the Institute’s programs of research and study with holdings of more than 2.9 million print volumes and 3.1 million special format items, and terabytes of MIT-owned digital content. In addition, rare special collections, Institute records, historical documents, and papers of noted faculty are held in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Library resources and services are accessible to students and researchers through the Libraries’ website (http://libraries.mit.edu/), and library spaces are widely available for both collaborative work and quiet study. Traditional library resources are supplemented by innovative services for bioinformatics, GIS, metadata, social science data, and research data management services, as well as multimedia facilities and services for video production, conferencing, webcasting and distance education. The Libraries utilize the Ex Libris Aleph system for its public Web-based catalog and as the support system for user service and processing functions. DSpace@MIT, a digital repository developed over the past ten years by the MIT Libraries, serves to capture, preserve and communicate the intellectual output of MIT’s faculty and research community. Other MIT repositories include: Dome, a second DSpace instance, providing access to a sizable image collection and other digital collections owned by the MIT Libraries; the MIT Geodata Repository for a diverse collection of GIS Data; and MIT’s DataVerse for licensed social science datasets. MIT Libraries maintain memberships and affiliations in arXiv, Association of Research Libraries, the BorrowDirect group, the Boston Library Consortium, DDI Alliance, DuraSpace, HathiTrust, CLIR/Digital Library Federation, the Coalition of Networked Information, EDUCAUSE, North East Research Libraries, OCLC Research Library Partnership, ORCID, and Portico.
June 2012

Comments are closed