Data Curator, The Databrary Project, New York NY

Posted June 10, 2013

DATA CURATOR

The Databrary project at New York University seeks a Data Curator, an information specialist who will work with researchers in developmental science to acquire and organize the content of the Databrary digital library (databrary.org).

Databrary is a joint project of NYU and Penn State University, currently funded by both NSF and NIH.  While its content is heterogeneous, a significant portion of the library is video material.

The Data Curator will be located at NYU in New York City and will report to the Databrary Project Administrator in NYU’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change and will also have a dotted-line reporting to the NYU Libraries.

The Data Curator will work in close collaboration with individual faculty and researchers across the country in preparing files for deposit, including

– Analysis of the structure of study data;
– Data normalization, cleaning, authority management;
– Organization of digital and physical inventories.

The Data Curator will also work in close collaboration with the Databrary software developers to

– Devise metadata schema that are flexible but that also offer incentives to consistency;

– Devise effective discovery services that function across heterogeneous metadata, and which foster interactions among a highly diverse community of researchers, including UX design and evaluation;
– Create best practices for long-term sustainability of data formats, including video formats, such as format migration and transcoding;
– Create deposit, maintenance, and annotation workflows;
– Create taxonomy(ies) and initial tag sets.

This is a full-time position at NYU, with full employee benefits, for a fixed-term of three years and with the possibility for extension.

Required Qualifications:

– MLS and 3-5 years experience in a related field, such as developmental science, metadata schema design and management, taxonomy management, or equivalent education and experience;
– Working knowledge of data management, including metadata, data retrieval and research data use, format migration, preservation;
– Demonstrated experience in consulting with faculty regarding technology or metadata options/requirements;
– Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Recommended Qualifications:

– Familiarity with video data and/or sensor data.

– Familiarity with data management technologies such as XML, SQL, unix filesystems.

 

TO APPLY

Send the following to [email protected]:

• One page cover letter (PDF)
• Links to your open source contributions or other samples of your work
• Resume (PDF)