Metadata Librarian for Science and Geospatial Data

Description

Description

NYU Libraries is seeking a tenure-track faculty librarian to support the creation and maintenance of metadata for science and geospatial resources in NYU’s general, distinctive, and special collections. The libraries curate and provide access to a wealth of datasets ranging from geospatial data in the NYU Spatial Data Repository, research data in Ultraviolet, and science data in the Open Science Framework. 

The Metadata Librarian for Science and Geospatial Data will collaborate closely with scholars, data scientists, and library colleagues in Data Services to improve the discoverability of STEM and geospatial data through experimentation and innovative solutions. As a member of the Metadata Strategy Unit, this position reports to the Metadata Strategist, Team Lead of the Metadata Strategy Unit in the department of Knowledge Access responsible for cataloging and metadata services.

The Metadata Librarian for Science and Geospatial Data will develop metadata application guidelines and templates to optimize resource discovery and access, create and maintain schemas for geospatial data to support digital scholarship and open scholarship projects, consult with domain experts to strategically enhance metadata and increase interoperability across institutional repositories, and create baseline conditions to support openness and friction-free environments that allow the public to find and take advantage of new knowledge. 

The successful candidate will have a willingness to learn and understand the process of data generation for any scientific or geospatial domain including understanding instrumentation, keeping up-to-date on metadata standards and ontologies, assessing key discoverability parameters, and activating and implementing versioning capabilities. 

In addition, this individual will work in collaboration with colleagues across the Libraries, NYU, and the profession to promote the development of ethical, equitable, and inclusive science and geospatial metadata vocabularies and schema as well as conduct research in the area of inclusive and anti-racist descriptive practices. Read more about NYU librarians doing this work here.

Responsibilities may include

• Metadata creation, description, and transformation for tabular research data, cartographic / geospatial data, and data sets. 

• Remediating and enriching legacy metadata with a variety of data science methods such as scripting languages, statistical tools, and machine learning techniques. 

• Cultivating theory and practice of scientific and geospatial ontologies, taxonomies, and metadata schemas (e.g. Federal Geographic Data Committee, ISO 191, Dublin Core, Library of Congress thesauri)

• Collaborating with stakeholders to provide alternative solutions for inclusive metadata (e.g. FAIR / CARE data principles) in response to the strategic priority of inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity, and accessibility (IDBEA).

• Participating in library committees on metadata policy, documentation, and workflows.

• Engaging directly with state, regional, and national communities (e.g. Open Geoportal) responsible for new trends within cartographic / GIS librarianship, and keeping up with emerging policies from major national and international funding and research support agencies. 

• Participating in research, publication, and other professional and scholarly activities.

Research

Faculty Librarians also explore their own active research agenda, contributing their expertise, experiences, and investigations to build new knowledge in their chosen areas. Librarians have wide latitude in determining their research agendas, and the Metadata Librarian for Science and Geospatial Data would find themselves well positioned to make substantive contributions to research in a number of areas, including, but not limited to, the design and communication of scholarship, knowledge, and technology in the public interest; open publishing and data reuse; system-level encoding of bias; and much more.

NYU Cluster Hiring Initiative

NYU Libraries is participating in the NYU Faculty Cluster Hiring Initiative to recruit, welcome, and support new library faculty working across the Division on timely themes of social importance, such as Inequality and Anti-racism, Population Health and Health Equity, Open Science and the Public Good, and Urban Environments and Politics. The cluster-hire approach offers NYU Libraries a new opportunity to address our goal of building a more diverse faculty community in a concerted way, with the full weight of the University’s recruitment and retention toolkit. It also allows us to mobilize our internal resources, including onboarding, cohort mentoring, and measures to protect time for research and service, and bring them to bear to ensure the success of new hires. For full details about the Libraries cluster hiring initiative, see this link.

This particular position is part of our Building STEM for the Public Good: Cultivating Openness in the Sciences cluster. Bringing together expertise in scientific data discovery, data curation and organization, open-access scholarship, digital preservation, and STEM engagement, this cluster will bring a key set of library and information science perspectives and theoretical underpinnings to heighten the impact of work already occurring across the university in the fields of education, data journalism, information and technology policy, data science, and more. The positions in this cluster build on the goal of libraries centering the public good in technology development, selection, policy, and implementation, not only to facilitate access to a range of technologies, but also to bring a critical lens to their inherent limitations and biases. 

About New York University Libraries 

At the Division of Libraries, we are proud of our organizational culture and we are ​committed​ ​to​ ​building​ ​and​ ​sustaining​ ​a​ ​diverse,​ ​inclusive,​ ​and equitable​ ​organization​ that supports a sense of belonging for the staff and communities we serve. For more about our values, see http://library.nyu.edu/about/general/values/

Libraries at New York University serve the school’s 40,000 students and faculty and contain more than 5 million volumes. The Libraries supports NYU’s vision to become the first true Global Network University by collaborating with and providing services to our 11 global academic centers and our “portal campuses” in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. New York University Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the OCLC Research Library Partnership, and the HathiTrust. The Libraries participate in a variety of consortia and collaborate closely with Columbia University Libraries and the New York Public Library through the Manhattan Research Library Consortium. View NYU Libraries Mission and Strategic Plan.

Qualifications

Required:

• Minimum one graduate degree (master’s level or higher), conferred by start date, for consideration. A second graduate degree will be required to be eligible for tenure. One of the two graduate degrees must be an ALA-accredited MLS or equivalent.

• Background in or experience with geospatial information systems (GIS), geospatial software (e.g. Esri’s ArcGIS Pro including Catalog, or QGIS), vector and raster spatial formats (e.g. shapefile, feature class, kml/kmz, GeoJSON, imagery, or Digital Elevation Model), and cartographic / geo-databases.

• Experience with data science software and tools for analyzing research data (e.g. tabular data, or textual / corpus data).

• Proficiency in one or more data transformation & programming languages. 

• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively with colleagues and communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

• Demonstrated commitment to inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity, and accessibility.

• Attention to detail and accuracy with strong oral / written communication skills.

Preferred:

• Experience with 3D spatial data (dwg, dxf, Lidar (LAS), Tin, or BIM), software (ERDAS Imagine, R Shiny, Python streamlit, Carto, Tableau, BIM, or AutoCAD), and interactive geospatial data visualizations.

• Knowledge of MARC / non-MARC (e.g. BIBFRAME, or Dublin Core) descriptive cataloging standards.

• Experience performing original or copy cataloging for a variety of library resources.

• Working knowledge of one or more non-English languages.

Salary/Benefits

This position is open rank with faculty status, and includes an attractive benefits package, including five weeks of annual vacation. 

The typical beginning annual base salary for a faculty member joining the Division of Libraries as a Full Curator in the academic year 2022-2023 is $100,000.

The typical beginning annual base salary for a faculty member joining the Division of Libraries as an Associate Curator in the academic year 2022-2023 is $90,000.

The typical beginning annual base salary for a faculty member joining the Division of Libraries as an Assistant Curator in the academic year 2022-2023 is $84,000.

The typical beginning annual base salary for a faculty member joining the Division of Libraries as a Library Associate in the academic year 2022-2023 is $80,000.

To Apply

To ensure consideration, submit your CV and letter of application, including the name, address, and telephone number of three references. NYU Division of Libraries requires all candidates for this position to supply a statement demonstrating their commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity, belonging, and accessibility as part of their application. Access the Diversity Statement prompt here: https://nyu.app.box.com/v/diversity-statement.

All applications for consideration must be submitted to http://apply.interfolio.com/110768

Applications will be considered until the position is filled. 

Preference will be given to applications received by April 28, 2023.

EOE/AA/Minorities/Females/Vet/Disabled/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity