Metadata Specialist III

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Job Summary

Getty seeks applications from innovative and forward-thinking individuals to join the Getty Research Institute’s (GRI) newly established Digital Stewardship and Metadata Optimization section within Special Collections Management as Metadata Strategies Specialist. Based in Los Angeles, the GRI is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the visual arts and their histories. Serving an international community of scholars, the Research Library is one of the world’s largest art and architecture libraries, with holdings exceeding 1.5 million volumes. Our Special Collections encompass rare books and journals, photographs, prints and drawings from the 15th century to the present, architectural plans and models, art multiples, film, audio and video recordings, born-digital content, and extensive archives and manuscript collections.

 

As a key institutional priority, the GRI is embracing a transformative, program-wide approach to metadata strategy. This is an exciting moment of transition, as we undertake major initiatives to evolve the systems and processes that manage and disseminate our digital archival collections. These efforts are opening new opportunities to generate and enrich metadata at scale, grounded in usability and sustainable practices. The Metadata Strategies Specialist will play a central role in designing and implementing innovative workflows to create, link, and enhance collections metadata, collaborating closely with internal teams across the GRI and with Getty technology partners. This position also offers the opportunity to contribute to institutional-wide initiatives in Linked Open Data and the Arches data management platform.

Major Job Responsibilities

• Design and lead projects focused on metadata remediation and enrichment, working in partnership with internal stakeholders across the Getty Research Institute and Getty Digital
• Analyze archival description source metadata to identify opportunities for reconciliation, normalization, and enrichment that improve discoverability and interoperability.
• Lead the development and implementation of metadata enrichment strategies that strengthen and expand the GRI’s linked data infrastructure
• Establish and maintain quality control processes to evaluate the accuracy, consistency, and usability of metadata produced through emerging models and methodologies to ensure trustworthiness and alignment with institutional standards
• Apply methods of computational analysis and tools to support metadata analysis and enrichment at scale
• Identify and pursue opportunities for external metadata contributions, including participation in aggregators, Wikidata, and other open data repositories
• Provide guidance and mentorship to staff on updated workflows, tools, and emergent metadata practices
• Contribute to enhancements of data management platforms by providing input on features, workflows, and tools that support scalable metadata creation and enrichment
• Contributes to documentation of standards, procedures, and workflows

Qualifications

• MLIS from an ALA-accredited program; undergraduate and additional graduate degree in an appropriate discipline preferred
• Minimum 5 years related professional experience
• May require related supervisory and/or project management experience
• Requires strong communication skills
• Requires special subject knowledge, foreign languages, and/or technical expertise
• Experience working in the visual arts, library, and/or archives domains highly desirable

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong knowledge of current metadata standards used in libraries archives, and museums, such as EAD, Dublin Core, CIDOC-CRM, and other emerging standards
• Technical expertise in OpenRefine and other computational methods and tools for data retrieval, analysis, reconciliation, and transformation
• Familiarity with or willingness to learn Python and other relevant scripting languages
• Demonstrated ability to build expertise in emerging approaches as well as established practice standards
• Familiarity with database structures and data management
• Basic understanding of linked data concept