Florida & Puerto Rico Digital Newspaper Project Coordinator

Description

The University of Florida Libraries was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to digitize Florida and Puerto Rico’s microfilmed newspapers as part of the Florida and Puerto Rico Digital Newspaper Project. The FPRDNP, a state partner in the National Digital Newspaper Program developed by NEH and the Library of Congress, will digitize 100,000 pages of historical Florida and Puerto Rico newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 in English and Spanish. The digitized newspapers will be included in the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America database.

The Project Coordinator reports to the Project Director at the University of Florida (UF) George A. Smathers Libraries and works in close collaboration with University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras (UPR-RP) project personnel. The Project Coordinator is responsible for the day-to-day coordination and management of the Florida and Puerto Rico Digital Newspaper Project (FPRDNP). These duties include technical and administrative activities; overseeing microfilm duplication and digital conversion activities for historic newspapers; managing relationships with vendors and external partners; and assisting in outreach activities, including the development of the project web site, wiki and listserv/discussion board.

RESPONSIBILITIES
Project Planning
• Manages project staff and coordinates project workflows.
• Works with UF project personnel, Advisory Board members, the Library of Congress, and partners at UPR-RP to develop the FPRDNP.
• Assists in Request for Proposals (RFP) process to evaluate vendors for digitization, metadata, and optical character recognition output.
• Develops delivery schedules; maintains tracking system/database for microfilm and digital deliverables.
• Creates documentation, and maintains complete and accurate records of all work performed.
• Reports microfilm selection data and digital deliverables fulfillment, including titles, reels, and page counts.

Technical/Procedural Oversight
• Oversees digitization, metadata capture, and OCR output; performs quality review of all assets and related activities for digitizing historic newspapers.
• Works with vendors to ensure quality microfilm duplication and deliverables for digital assets, and to negotiate budgetary issues.
• Coordinates cataloging/metadata professional workflows for microfilm inventory and metadata collation.
• Evaluates newspaper microfilm quality and suitability for digitization.

Project Outreach, Publicity and Communication
• Works with UF project personnel, Advisory Board members, the Library of Congress, and partners at UPR-RP to publicize the FPRDNP.
• Manages the development of the project website, wiki and listserv/discussion board.
• Collaborates with Project Director to deliver progress reports on a specified schedule.
• Responds to public, professional and scholarly inquiries.

Other Duties as Assigned
• Attends training (in person and online) directly relevant to project.

QUALIFICATIONS
Required:
Bachelor's degree and four years of related library experience; or a Master's degree and two years of related library experience; or any equivalent combination of experience, training and/or education.

Preferred:
• Demonstrated project management experience.
• Experience with and a solid understanding of digitization and/or microfilm conversion projects, including microfilm inspection and assessment for digitization
• Quality control experience.
• Experience with standards-based metadata schemas (non-MARC and MARC) and principles governing standards in digital libraries.
• Knowledge of newspapers or serials, and ability to assess complex relationships between titles.
• Strong interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills, the ability to work with a variety of people.
• Demonstrated ability to pay attention to detail.
• Flexibility and willingness to shift priorities according to current needs.
• National Digital Newspaper Program prior experience.
• Familiarity with XML.
• Knowledge of Spanish.
• Commitment to diversity and inclusion

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
The University of Florida (UF) is a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. The state's oldest and most comprehensive university, UF is among the nation's most academically diverse public universities. UF has a long history of established programs in international education, research and service. It is one of only 17 public, land-grant universities that belong to the Association of American Universities. UF traces its beginnings to a small seminary in 1853 and is now one of the largest universities in the nation, with more than 50,000 students. For more information, please consult the UF homepage at http://www.ufl.edu.

GEORGE A. SMATHERS LIBRARIES
The George A. Smathers Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), and LYRASIS. The library staff consists of more than 400 FTE librarians, technical/clerical staff and student assistants. The George A. Smathers Libraries organizational chart is available at: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/backpage.html. For more information about the Libraries, please visit http://www.uflib.ufl.edu.

HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES LIBRARY (Library West)
The Humanities and Social Sciences Library (Library West) is the largest branch library on the UF campus, with 14 faculty and 16 staff members, seating for 1,400 patrons, and 150 public computers. Last year, Library West received over 1.4 million visitors. Renovated in 2006, the branch offers 17 group study rooms, 3 media rooms, including video conferencing facilities, faculty and graduate carrels as well as a limited-access floor for graduate students. Two classrooms are available, one with auditorium-style seating and the other with 19 computers for hands-on instruction. Within the branch, there are four functional units: Research Assistance, Instruction and Outreach, Collections, and Circulation; these units are managed by coordinators who oversee the daily functions. Programs and lectures are scheduled throughout the year in the Information Commons area. The branch is also home to the Libraries Administration, Human Resources and Fiscal Services, Library Facilities Planning, and the Access Support unit providing ILL and Reserves services for all branches. A Starbucks is located in the building.

COMMUNITY
Gainesville, Florida and the surrounding community are home to approximately 240,000 people and both the University of Florida and Santa Fe College. Situated just over an hour from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, the city is surrounded by over 40 nature parks, including many spring-fed lakes and rivers. In 2007, Gainesville was ranked as the “Best Place to Live and Work” by Frommer’s Cities Ranked and Rated and as one of the “Best Places to Live and Play” by National Geographic Adventure. Gainesville is known as an innovative municipal government and an innovative city. Gainesville continues to receive national recognition as a top-rated city. Some of Gainesville's accolades are listed at the Gainesville Awards and Recognition link. A recent article in Florida Trend Magazine offers an in depth Community Portrait of Gainesville and the University of Florida. The area has numerous cultural institutions and is a haven for sports fans. Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee, and St. Augustine are all within a two hour drive.

BENEFITS
Vacation days, paid holidays, and sick leave days; retirement plan options; insurance benefits; tuition fee waiver program; no state or local income tax. Prospective employees should review the information about employment and benefits at UF available at http://www.hr.ufl.edu/training/neo/default.asp.

APPLICATION PROCESS
The University of Florida is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages applications from women and minority group members. We are dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic environment; we strongly encourage applications from women, members of underrepresented groups, individuals with disabilities, and veterans. As part of the application process, applicants are invited to complete an on-line confidential and voluntary demographic self-disclosure form which can be found at: http://www.hr.ufl.edu/job/datacard.htm. This information is collected by the University of Florida's Office of Human Resources to track applicant trends and is in no way considered by the Smathers Libraries in the selection process.

If you are interested in these positions please apply online at http://jobs.ufl.edu referring to requisition number 0903748.

For further details about this position please contact Tina Marie Litchfield at (352) 273-2595.