Digital Library Software Engineer
Harvard University

 Duties & Responsibilities

The Harvard Library's Office for Scholarly Communication is looking for a talented and creative
software engineer with a passion for democratizing access to knowledge.

As part of our team of librarians, scholars, and software engineers, you will work on the cutting
edge of the open access movement to make academic research produced at Harvard and
elsewhere available to anyone, throughout the world, free of charge.

Your responsibilities will include:
  • Extending DASH, Harvard's central open-access repository, based on the open-source Dspace platform
  • Creating and maintaining web/mobile sites using Drupal and other rapid development platforms
  • Generating novel javascript widgets and visualizations to support open access initiatives
  • Crafting back-end scripts and processes for data ingest and reporting
  • Taking ownership of new open access projects
  • Working closely with librarians, scholars, and technologists across institutional boundaries

We are less concerned about specific technologies than about finding a good programmer and
team player who cares deeply about what we do. But to give you a taste of the technologies
we are currently using or experimenting with, see the lists of "qualifications" below. It’s OK if
you are missing a few buzzwords – as long as your can demonstrate the interest and ability to
learn them (and others) as required.

Please Note: This is a one year term-limited position; continuation anticipated but contingent
upon funding and business needs.

Basic Qualifications
  • 5+ years web application development experience
  • Solid understanding of core web technologies and best practices (HTML, javascript, DOM, CSS, HTTP, XML, JSON, AJAX, REST)
  • Knowledge of relational databases (mysql, oracle, sqlite)
  • Thorough command of written and spoken English
  • Demonstrated ability to take appropriate initiative

Additional Qualifications
  • Experience using rapid web development frameworks (e.g., php/symfony, ruby/rails, python/django)
  • Experience developing Java-based web applications (tomcat, cocoon, ant, maven, lucene/solr)  
  • Strong, practical understanding javascript/JQuery  
  • Full life cycle development experience (technical design through implementation)
  • Skills in Object-Oriented Design, Application Architecture and MVC
  • Comfort with UNIX/Linux, Apache, shell scripting (bash, python, perl) 
  • Experience extending Drupal or other CMS 
  • Background in academic library systems 
  • Experience with Dspace or other digital repository   software
  • Familiarity with library metadata standards and bibliographic information structure

Additional Information

The Harvard Library Office for Scholarly Communication was formed in 2008 with a charge to
the University Library from the Harvard Provost to spearhead campus-wide initiatives to open,
share, and preserve scholarship.The OSC benefits from the oversight of a University-wide
faculty advisory board that provides advice on specific programs and policies.

With support from OSC, open-access policies are now in place in more than half of the Harvard
schools. These policies were voted on by the faculty and grant an automatic license to Harvard
for scholarly articles authored by faculty members.

Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) is the University wide, open-access, repository
used to house articles that fall under the faculty open access policies. Visitors to DASH can
locate, read, and use up-to-the-minute scholarship from Harvard. DASH is crawled by search
engines and indexes so a broad range of communities have the ability to discover materials in
DASH. Faculty, or faculty assistants, have the ability to submit articles directly to DASH.
Articles can also be emailed to OSC or faculty can request a student to help with the process.

OSC is undertaking many other activities related to open access, including support for
open-access journal publishing, conference presentations, online distribution of PhD
dissertations, and education and outreach to faculty on the importance of the policies and the
procedures for supporting them. To learn more about OSC, please visit:
http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/about
Job Type:
full-time
Telecommute:
No
Job URL:
http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/2012/06/os...
Posted:
Page Views:
65
Contact:
Reinhard Engels
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