Digital Collections Librarian: Assistant or Associate Librarian

Job Title

Digital Collections Librarian: Assistant or Associate Librarian

Department

Steward and Sustain

Worker Type

Regular

Pay Type

Salary

Position Salary Minimum

Assistant: $55,000
Associate: $63,000

Position Salary Maximum

Assistant: $63,000
Associate: $72,000

Salary will be commensurate with the level of the position, education, and experience.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Benefit Eligible

Yes

Screening Date

2026-08-31

Job Description Summary

Miami University Libraries seeks a collaborative, knowledgeable, and service-oriented Digital Collections Librarian to lead its digital collections program, with primary responsibility for digitized and born-digital special collections and shared responsibility for digital preservation.

Reporting to the Head of Special Collections & Archives, the Digital Collections Librarian develops sustainable practices for managing digital materials throughout their lifecycle—from selection, acquisition, and rights review through digitization, description, preservation, discovery, use, and assessment.

The librarian collaborates with library colleagues, partners, patrons, and community stakeholders. The position advances teaching, research, digital scholarship, exhibitions, and public engagement involving the distinctive collections of Miami University Libraries.

Job Description

About the Collections

The Walter Havighurst Special Collections, University Archives, and Preservation unit stewards more than 125,000 rare books and other printed materials, more than 600,000 postcards, university and institutional archives, manuscript collections, and a wide range of distinctive materials of national and international significance.

The archival collections document the history of Miami University, Western College for Women, Oxford College for Women, and the communities connected with these institutions.

Miami University Libraries’ digital collections provide online access to photographs, manuscripts, publications, newspapers, audiovisual materials, and other digital objects. Collections include the Recensio yearbooks, Miami University Board of Trustees minutes, Miami University historical photographs, Western College materials, Oxford College materials,  and other resources supporting research, teaching, and public engagement.

Key Responsibilities

Digital Collections and Digital Preservation

• Lead the planning, implementation, documentation, and assessment of projects involving digitized and born-digital special collections and archival materials.

• Develop and manage sustainable workflows for selection, acquisition, digitization, quality control, repository ingest, digital preservation, discovery, and access.

• Establish policies, technical specifications, and procedures for born-digital materials, web archives, digitization, digital preservation, storage, migration, and long-term access.

• Assess preservation risks, evaluate emerging technologies and professional practices, and collaborate with Library Technology and other partners on infrastructure, security, backup, integrations, and service improvements.

• Coordinate and supervise the work of student employees, interns, and other project participants.
   

Metadata, Systems, Discovery, and Access

• Develop and assess metadata practices that support the description, management, preservation, discovery, and reuse of digital collections.

• Create, transform, remediate, and migrate descriptive, administrative, structural, technical, and preservation metadata using appropriate standards and tools.

• Support the administration and development of digital collections, archival management, and digital preservation platforms, including system configuration, testing, upgrades, troubleshooting, and integration with other discovery systems.

• Promote accessible, inclusive, user-centered, and culturally responsible access while addressing copyright, privacy, intellectual property, donor restrictions, cultural sensitivity, and other legal and ethical considerations.
   

Teaching, Research, and Engagement

• Promote the discovery and use of Miami University Libraries’ digital and physical distinctive collections through research assistance, consultations, instruction, outreach, and public programming.