[LIBJOBS] USA - Princeton, NJ - Leader, Middle Eastern Languages Team

Leader, Middle Eastern Languages Team

Princeton University Library

Princeton, New Jersey

Requisition # 1400914

 

 

The Princeton University Library is one of the world’s leading research libraries, serving a diverse community of 5,200 undergraduates, 2,700 graduate students, 1,200 faculty members, and many visiting scholars.  Its holdings include more than 7 million printed volumes, 5 million manuscripts, 2 million non-print items, and extensive collections of digital text, data, and images.  The Library employs a dedicated and knowledgeable staff of more than 300 professional and support staff working in a large central library, 9 specialized branches, and 3 storage facilities.

 

Major Responsibilities:

 

Princeton University Library seeks candidates for the position of Leader, Middle Eastern Languages Team.  Applicants must be strongly versed in Arabic and the history and cultures of the Middle East, and possess the qualities and experience necessary to lead a team of professional experts and highly skilled support staff in the creation and management of metadata critical to the effective use of the Library’s renowned Near East Collections.

The Princeton University Near East Collections constitute one of the major assemblages of Near Eastern research materials in the United States.  All areas of classical Islamic civilization are well represented, with an emphasis on literary, historical, legal, and religious texts.

The position reports to the Director of Cataloging and Metadata Services and is part of the management group responsible for framing the Department's overall metadata strategy, exploring new technologies, and implementing new workflows to improve user services and enhance discovery access to the Library’s collections.  The Middle East Languages Team Leader directly supervises three professional librarians, with four paraprofessional bibliographic specialists reporting indirectly to the MELT Leader through one of the team’s librarians.  The MELT Leader collaborates with colleagues within Technical Services and in other Library departments on projects providing metadata to support digital initiatives, contributing special technical and subject expertise to discovery system configuration efforts, and crafting innovative cataloging strategies to address special acquisition and holdings scenarios.  The MELT Leader supplements the team’s cataloging production to ensure priority throughput and attends to cataloging instances requiring creative solutions.  The Middle East Languages Team Leader is expected to maintain awareness of peer operations and best practices through professional involvement.

 

Essential Qualifications:

 

·       MLS combined with an academic background in Middle Eastern studies; or an advanced degree in Middle Eastern studies with an emphasis on Arabic language, literature, culture, and history, and a minimum of two years of experience in a research library.

·       Strong reading knowledge of Arabic.

·       Two years of comparable cataloging experience.

·       Supervisory experience, or related relevant leadership experience, demonstrating a strong likelihood of success in the position.

 

Strongly Preferred Qualifications:

 

·       Reading knowledge of other Middle Eastern languages, especially, Persian, Hebrew, Turkish, and/or Ottoman Turkish.

·       RDA cataloging experience and/or NACO experience.

·       Experience providing cataloging and metadata for digital formats, and in creating and editing non-MARC metadata using standards and schema such as Dublin Core, MODS, etc.

·       Experience demonstrating initiative implementing new technologies to improve cataloging.

·       Experience with metadata issues related to the design and configuration of research library discovery systems and web-based search engines.

 

 

Applications will be accepted only from the Jobs at Princeton website: http://www.princeton.edu/jobs and must include a resume/cv, cover letter, and a list of three references with full contact information. This position is subject to the University's background check policy.

 

Princeton University is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.