Reporting to the Director, Access Services, the Head, Collections Maintenance shapes the stewardship and user discovery experience of Butler Library’s onsite collections. The role oversees a team whose primary job responsibilities include shelving, routing of material for binding, periodicals ingest, microform management, shifting, and general stacks maintenance of the library’s print and other physical collections. This position will also design and lead a full-scale inventory of the library’s collections in partnership with other Columbia University Libraries stakeholders, including Collection Acquisition & Description and Humanities & Global Studies.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership and direction for a team whose primary job responsibilities include routing of material for binding, periodicals ingest, microform management, shelving, shifting, and general stacks maintenance of the library’s print and other physical collections.
• Oversee general circulation cycle of physical collections, from shelf to user and back to shelf.
• Maintain active relationships and collaborate with Libraries partners to ensure proper stewardship of Butler Library’s physical collections.
• Identify, recommend, implement, and evaluate new technologies, policies, workflows, and departmental initiatives.
• Plan long- and short-term remedies for space constraints in Butler stacks, including shifting, off-site relocation, and weeding.
• Design procedures for regular and ongoing inventory of the physical collections.
• Set daily staff priorities as well as individual and team goals.
• Oversee and delegate the recruitment, hiring, scheduling, and training of student employees.
• Lead or participate in committees as assigned.
• Participate in and pursue professional development opportunities. Remain up-to-date on current practices within the field.

About Columbia University Libraries

We encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, and abilities to apply for this unique opportunity to become a part of our evolving Libraries and University community. Columbia University Libraries is a globally-recognized academic research library system, serving one of the world’s most important centers of research and learning in the most exciting and dynamic city in the world. Talented Libraries staff build, sustain, and make discoverable collections that transcend traditional boundaries of format and domain, keeping pace with a dynamic and rapidly evolving information environment and creating opportunities for users to encounter 4,000 years of human thought.

Our decisions are informed by new curricula developed to meet the needs of a more diverse student body, new and emerging areas of research being conducted by a broad spectrum of researchers, including graduate students and newly-hired faculty, as well as by perspectives from the diminished or entirely lost voices of historically oppressed, marginalized, and underserved populations and communities. As an organization, the Libraries provides a supportive, connected environment where every employee’s perspective is valued and every employee is encouraged to grow. All staff members have an impact on Columbia’s mission to advance knowledge at the highest levels and make the results of research accessible to the world.

Columbia University has a longstanding commitment to diversity rooted in values of inclusion and social justice, a commitment reflected in the curriculum and throughout University life. Columbia welcomes applications from candidates who share these values and who will foster their contribution to the University’s educational mission. We invite applicants who have demonstrated creative approaches to empowering and mentoring staff, leading projects, solving problems, and developing user-centric programs, services, or collections. We offer salary and benefits commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Master of Library Science or other advanced degree in a related field, with relevant experience in libraries, museums, archives, or other cultural heritage research centers
• Project management experience, preferably related to library collections
• Familiarity with data collection, processing, and analysis
• Experience maintaining physical library collections
• Supervisory experience, preferably supervision of full-time staff, including goal setting and assessment
• Demonstrated leadership, problem solving, and decision-making skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication habits
• Experience with at least one integrated library system

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with organized labor unions
• Understanding of and experience working with diverse communities of people
• Experience working at a large research university
• Knowledge of shared lending practices and library consortia

Learn More in an Online Information Session

We are hosting an anonymized information session for prospective applicants. We welcome you to join the session to learn more about the Columbia University Libraries, meet the Director of Access Services, and the Director of HR and ask questions you may have. Attendance and questions will be confidential, as the participant list for the Zoom Webinar session will be hidden. Please note that attendance is not required to apply or be considered for a position.

Register to join our Online Information Session:

December 6, 2023 12-12:45pm EST -  CUL Access Services Librarian Information Session 12/6/2023 12:00pm-12:45pm EST

This position is being hired for at the same time as one other position in the Access Services unit, the ‘Head, User Services’.  Applicants are encouraged to explore the job postings and may apply to both positions.

This position may have the option to operate partially remote and requires residency within a commutable distance.

The initial review of applications is expected to begin in January 2024. Applications will be considered until the position is filled.

Apply online here