Open Data Specialist

Description

The Chattanooga Public Library (CPL) is seeking a qualified candidate for a newly created Open Data Specialist (ODS) position.  The successful applicant will join our fantastic digital projects team on The 4th Floor, a 14,000 sq ft public maker/hackerspace in Chattanooga’s city center.  This is a unique library job that combines the diverse talents of a seasoned collection development specialist, a web developer, a data scientist, and a community outreach specialist. The ODS position is a year-long grant funded position awarded to the CPL as one partner in the Open Chattanooga collaborative. With demonstrated success, we intend to extend the position beyond the duration of the grant indefinitely.

The ideal candidate for the ODS position is an open data evangelist and an expert who can work with representatives from city government as well as citizen groups like Open Chattanooga to coordinate contributions of data to a public platform or portal. This portal will be hosted by the library and accessed alongside our other digital collections. The portal’s exceptional construction, performance, and maintenance are all the responsibility of the ODS.  The ODS will coordinate with partners to ensure that all data added to the portal is useful, useable, and accessible like all of our other public library collections. While this position does not require the candidate to be a degreed librarian, it is important that the candidate demonstrates an understanding of professional collection development principles, since this government-produced data will be treated as a library collection. 

The first and most important task the ODS faces is the buildout of the platform itself, as well as the creation of a sustainability plan and documentation of the open data portal as a library collection.  Currently, the library has a beta version of a data portal available at opendata.chattlibrary.org; this was created using DKAN.  The ODS will either continue work using this platform, or will present a case for the adoption of another open source platform, such as CKAN.

Chattanooga Public Library considers this data portal a key piece of our digital infrastructure as we develop more online library services and migrate some of our traditional library services into a networked environment.  The ideal candidate will bring innovative and creative thought and workflows to our already robust digital services team.  Eventually, the CPL anticipates serving more than just open government data from this platform.  A candidate with a passion for developing cutting edge services, skills to build and deliver applications and products, and a desire to have fun working collaboratively with the rest of us will find CPL to be a satisfying work environment.

Other qualifications, requirements, and preferences:

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience in CS or related field
• Demonstrated understanding of data structures and APIs
• Familiarity with the Drupal CMS and DKAN or with CKAN
• Familiarity with the LAMP stack; demonstrated PHP development experience
• A strong history of contributions and commitments to open source projects
• Please provide a link to your github account or another online portfolio
• Bonus points for the applicant with UI / UX / design experience
• This is a full-time position with benefits.  Sorry, this is not a remote work opportunity, you will have to work in the library. 

The salary for this job is $55,000/year.

Email application, resume, and portfolio to cooper_j@lib.chattanooga.gov