Technology Systems & Support Services Dept Head, MIT Libraries, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Posted October 30, 2015

The MIT Libraries seek a seasoned leader with broad technical experience and strong management skills to lead a service-oriented department that develops, supports, and extends information and technology solutions for the Libraries. The Head, Technology Systems & Support Services (TS3) works closely with other members of the technology leadership team, their staff, and the MIT Libraries community to identify innovative and valued solutions.

The Head of TS3 will lead a department that provides infrastructure and deployment, administration, training, consultation, and support services for personal computing; digital library development environment; enterprise library systems; archive and preservation systems; teaching, learning, and collaboration technology; digital signage; administrative applications and platforms; and, website infrastructure. This includes managing daily operations and supervising the current staff of 9 (plus contract staff) that comprise the Enterprise Systems, Desktop Support Services, IT Infrastructure & Operations, and Metadata Support teams, ensuring that work is delivered on time and within budget, and that desired outcomes are realized. The Head will design/implement robust processes, standards, and procedures to meet high availability, system security, disaster recovery, and service management targets and will actively support DevOps principles and methods, and cultivate cross organizational processes.

The Head of TS3 will use strong management practices to establish goals and service standards to guide the work of the department and will monitor performance of support activities, identify problem areas, and devise and deliver solutions to enhance the quality of services. They will train, coach, and mentor with a hands-on, engaging leadership style and 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 team members.

Working synergistically with other library units, the Head of TS3 will build and sustain reliable and scalable infrastructure, systems and support services. They will provide leadership in defining technology requirements for library-wide projects and initiatives, as well as identifying, developing, and delivering end user training programs to increase computer literacy and self-sufficiency among Libraries’ staff. They will develop relationships with stakeholders, and engage the library community to ensure the organization delivers technology capabilities and outstanding customer service. The Head will also coordinate support for new campus technology initiatives and play a key role in evaluating and deploying new systems and services.

Reporting to the Associate Director for Information Technology and Digital Development (ITDD), the Head of TS3 will participate in setting technology standards and 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. They are also expected to research new and emerging technologies and to contribute to the professional networks of others engaged in similar work.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS include a Bachelor’s degree, 7+ years IT management experience with increasing responsibility in a customer-focused technology service organization, and 5+ years of supervisory experience that demonstrates success in managing, motivating and leading technology-driven teams. The successful candidate will be a hands-on, technology savvy leader with a flexible approach to problem solving and a commitment to transparency and inclusiveness and will have strong technical competency in a variety of platforms and applications including Microsoft Windows/Linux environments, server and desktop virtualization, failover/high-availability solutions, public cloud services, and system/network security. The Head of TS3 must have exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities as well as influencing, negotiation and critical thinking skills, and a track record of personal initiative and ability to drive change. Strong interpersonal skills including mentoring, coaching, and collaborating are a must, as well as a track record of building and supporting collaborative teams. The Head will possess strong time management, planning, and organizational skills with the ability to adapt to shifting priorities, demands and timelines and to work with remote collaborators and schedules that include working outside business hours. Exceptional oral and written communications and customer service skills are critical to success, as is a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.

SALARY AND BENEFITS: Commensurate with 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://jobs.mit.edu/

Applications must include cover letter and resume. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. 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, 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.