Literatures & Digital Humanities Librarian

Description

The University of California, Berkeley seeks a collaborative and service-oriented librarian to support world-class research and teaching through the development of the Library’s research collections and engagement with faculty and students associated with scholarship and practices in English and American Literature, comparative literature, and digital humanities.

Responsibilities
Reporting to the Head of the Arts & Humanities Division, the Literatures & Digital Humanities Librarian supports research, teaching, and scholarship by shaping the Library’s rich research collection; developing research tools to facilitate user access to resources in various formats; providing specialized orientations, instructional sessions, and research consultations for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students; and contributing to reference services for the humanities and social sciences. The incumbent cultivates and sustains connections with faculty, students and staff of key academic departments, programs, and centers, including serving as a resource for emerging technologies, scholarly communication, and research methods to meet the evolving needs of these fields.

Collection development/management includes responsibility for selection, acquisition, access, assessment, and disposition of wide-ranging resources in all formats that are appropriate to the research and teaching needs of the UC Berkeley campus. Through skilled management of collections budgets, including endowments and collaborative purchases, the incumbent guides the development of the core collections and special collections in the disciplines of English and American literature, and comparative literature published in English and supporting North America, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking nations.

In the area of digital humanities, the incumbent will be a leader, change agent, and expert resource for subject librarians and special collections curators involved in facilitating faculty and student digital humanities projects. In addition, the selected candidate will create and coordinate educational programing for library staff focused on digital arts and humanities issues and projects. Working with a network of subject specialists and other relevant staff, s/he will conduct regular environmental scans of the campus environment to identify emerging trends and scholarly digital projects; and participate in campus digital humanities groups and departments that support emerging digital humanities scholarship.

In order to effectively enhance access and support interdisciplinary research, the incumbent partners with other campus colleagues specializing in social sciences, humanities, area studies, international documents, and digitization, as well as with the California Digital Library and the Center for Research Libraries. UC Berkeley librarians and academic staff are expected to participate in library-wide planning and governance, and work effectively in a shared decision-making environment.

Advancement is partially based upon professional contributions beyond the primary assignment; the successful candidate will show evidence or promise of such contributions to the Library, campus, UC System, and profession.

Qualifications
Minimum Basic Qualification at time of application:

American Library Association-accredited Master’s degree or equivalent degree
Additional Required Qualifications by start date of position:

• Experience participating in collection development in an academic or research library
• Experience providing reference and/or instructional services related to humanities, social sciences, and/or area studies in an academic or research library environment
• Working experience with digital humanities research tools and approaches related to the discipline of literature (e.g. text mining, text analysis, electronic literature)
• Demonstrated commitment to providing highly responsive public service, and ability to work effectively with diverse staff and campus user communities
• Demonstrated understanding of the information needs of researchers studying topics in humanities, English and American literature, comparative literature, and scholarship in the digital humanities
• Knowledge of scholarly communication issues and trends within the English and American literature, and comparative literature disciplines and practice
• Excellent analytical, organizational, problem solving, interpersonal, and communication skills
• Capacity to thrive in a dynamic environment, respond effectively to shifting needs and priorities of library constituents, and afford a willingness to be flexible with liaison and selector assignments as assigned

Additional Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in a related field (such as English literature, American literature, comparative literature, or other humanities focus)
• Experience developing innovative services to enhance research and/or teaching
• Experience engaging in collaborative projects and programs at the local, regional, national, and/or international level
• Experience with grant writing and fundraising