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Department Head, Liaison, Instruction and Reference Services, MIT Libraries, Cambridge MA

Posted August 4, 2014

The MIT Libraries seek a dynamic, future-oriented leader to head the new department of Liaison, Instruction, and Reference Services. The Department Head will lead a group of 19+ FTE to partner in the research and teaching activities of the Institute. This group of highly engaged professionals provides expert research and information support, builds targeted collections, and promotes information-related services in order to maximize the MIT community’s ability to engage in independent discovery and become effective consumers of
the resources and services available to them. The department thinks broadly about the provision of instruction and reference services and serves as a resource to other departments who also work directly with the MIT Community. The Head will complete the integration of two formerly distinct departments, Liaisons for Departments, Labs, and Centers (LDLC) and Instruction and Reference Services (IRS), into a single group.

The Department Head will develop and execute a shared vision and plan for liaison, reference, and instructional services for the MIT Community, leading and inspiring an entrepreneurial and service-focused staff to provide MIT with evolving services matched to community needs. The Head will use strong management practices to establish impactful goals and service standards to guide the work of the department, as well as use assessment techniques to ensure effective operations and continuous improvement. The Department Head will foster a working environment that promotes and supports productivity, creativity, innovation, collaboration, diversity, and inclusion. The Head will manage resources to optimize support of initiatives and will develop the current
and future-oriented roles, expertise, skills, and capacity of department members. If appropriate, the Head may perform liaison duties for an MIT department, lab, center, program, or administrative group.

The Department Head will work synergistically with other units of the MIT Libraries to deliver a user-focused, integrated portfolio of services to the MIT community, including, in particular, Collections Strategy and Management, Information Delivery & Library Access, Data and Specialized Services, and the Institute Archives and Special Collections. The Head will also work with the Libraries’ Director of Development to propose funding opportunities and meet with donors.

Reporting to the Associate Director for Research and Instructional Services (RIS), the Department Head will participate in developing the overall strategy and goals for the directorate, balancing the needs of the MIT community and the Library system, fiscal constraints, and departmental staff needs. And, as a member of Library Council s/he will participate in strategic planning and other activities to advance the MIT Libraries’ mission. The Department Head is also expected to contribute to professional networks of others engaged in similar work.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS for the position include:

  •  ALA-accredited MLS/MLIS or equivalent advanced degree in library or information science
  •  Minimum of 7 years of relevant professional experience in a client-centered service organization, with a minimum of 5 years of management and supervisory experience that demonstrates success in strategic thinking, managing, motivating and leading teams of professional staff.
  •  Experience in academic and/or research library environments.
  •  Experience in providing instruction, reference, collection, and/or outreach services to a research community.
  •  Proven ability to manage complex, long-term organizational initiatives, and flexibility in meeting objectives and implementing creative solutions.
  •  Demonstrated service commitment and success in user-centered service delivery.
  •  Demonstrated ability to successfully use assessment techniques to foster continuous improvement.
  •  Successful leadership style that includes a commitment to transparency and inclusiveness.
  •  Demonstrated ability to cultivate the growth and potential of staff and to foster a collegial work environment.
  •  A collaborative approach to problem solving and working across organizational boundaries in service of user needs.
  •  Demonstrated experience in developing and maintaining relationships with user communities
  •  Demonstrated knowledge and exploration of technology and its application to user services
  •  Excellent analytical, interpersonal and communication skills.
  •  Proven success in collaboration and strategic partnering and ability to think broadly about the needs and mission of the library system as a whole.
  •  Evidence of a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion both in supporting a diverse workforce and serving the needs of a diverse population.
  •  A record of sustained professional contribution and engagement.

SALARY AND BENEFITS: $100,000 minimum. Actual salary will depend on qualifications and experience. MIT offers excellent benefits including a choice of health and retirement plans, a dental plan, tuition assistance and a relocation allowance. The MIT Libraries afford a flexible and collegial working environment and foster professional growth of staff with management training and travel funding for professional meetings.

Apply online at: http://hrweb.mit.edu/staffing/. Applications must include cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references. Review of applications will begin September 15, 2014. MIT is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community and particularly encourages applications from qualified women and minority candidates.

The MIT Libraries support the Institute’s programs of research and study with holdings of more than 2.9 million print volumes and 3.1 million special format items, and terabytes of MIT-owned digital content. In addition, rare special collections, Institute records, historical documents, and papers of noted faculty are held in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Library resources and services are accessible to students and researchers through the Libraries’ website (http://libraries.mit.edu/), and library spaces are widely available for both
collaborative work and quiet study. Library resources are supplemented by innovative services for bioinformatics, GIS, metadata, social science and other research data. Through a culture that encourages innovation and collaboration, the MIT Libraries are redefining the role of the 21st century library – making
collections more accessible than ever before, and shaping the future of scholarly research. Library staff, at all levels, contribute to this spirit of innovation and to the mission of promoting learning, discovery and the advancement of knowledge at MIT and beyond.

The Libraries maintain memberships and affiliations in ArchivesSpace, arXiv, Association of Research Libraries, the BorrowDirect, Boston Library Consortium, DDI Alliance, DuraSpace, HathiTrust, CLIR/Digital Library
Federation, Coalition of Networked Information, Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, EDUCAUSE, National Digital Stewardship Alliance, NISO, North East Research Libraries, OCLC Research Library Partnership, and ORCID. The Libraries utilize Ex Libris’ Aleph for its integrated library system and have recently deployed EBSCO’s Discovery Service. DSpace@MIT, a digital repository developed over the past ten years by the MIT Libraries, serves to capture, preserve and communicate the intellectual output of MIT’s faculty and research community. Other MIT repositories include: Dome, a second DSpace instance, providing access to a sizable image collection and other digital collections owned by the MIT Libraries; the MIT Geodata Repository for a
diverse collection of GIS Data; and MIT’s DataVerse for licensed social science datasets.

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