Job Description
The Boston University Libraries seek a highly motivated and experienced library leader to serve as BU’s first Associate University Librarian for Special Collections. This new leadership role will be charged with reimagining the goals of the Libraries’ special collections and digital scholarship programs while transforming the way that BU creates, preserves, and supplies online access and preservation to the university’s rich holdings.
Through deep personal engagement, depth of experience, and intellectual leadership, this AUL directly oversees the library’s principal special collections unit, the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, and the library’s new digitization and digital initiatives program and facility, Digital Ventures. In addition to directing all acquisitions and research support activities of the Gotlieb Center, this AUL will also develop practices that apply to special and distinctive collections held across the BU Libraries system, and will work across departments to implement a cohesive strategy for access, discovery, and preservation of special collections material.
The successful candidate will have a passion for research engagement and digital initiatives and will offer both strategic vision and established expertise to foster nascent initiatives and build relationships.
This rewarding senior role will shape the future of special collections and digital initiatives in a large research library in the heart of Boston during an exciting period of growth and expansion.
The Community
Working at Boston University Libraries
Boston University Libraries is a learning organization that supports BU librarians, archivists, and information and subject specialists seeking and sharing knowledge, practices, and perspectives that advance library collections and services, and their own professional development and growth. In a collaborative, supportive, and engaging work environment, BU Libraries expert staff assist multidisciplinary research and exploration, build distinctive collections and archives of enduring research value, and empower users to thrive amid an ever-changing information environment.
Recognizing the central role the library system plays in its robust research and learning agendas, Boston University has made the BU Libraries a focal point of its BU2030 Strategic Plan, investing in core services, innovative programs, and plans for significant renovations of its central branch.
The BU Libraries are at the heart of BU’s vibrant academic experience, serving as a community connector, provider of vital research and instructional services for faculty and students, and the access point to a wealth of timely scholarly resources. In addition, the Gotlieb Center at the BU Libraries maintains over 2,000 different manuscript collections in the fields of literature, criticism, journalism, drama, music, film, civil rights, diplomacy, and national affairs in additional to its rare and special book collections and historic Boston University Archives (approx. 60,000 linear feet). Notable collections of the Gotlieb Center include the papers of Boston University’s most noted alumnus, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the papers of Isaac Asimov; Alistair Cooke; Bette Davis; Maya Deren; Robert Frost; Nikki Giovanni, David Halberstam; W. Somerset Maugham; Partisan Review Magazine; Dan Rather; Theodore Roosevelt; Ethel & Julius Rosenberg; Sonia Sanchez; Howard & Sue Bailey Thurman; and long-time faculty member Elie Wiesel, among many others.
Located in the heart of Boston, the BU Libraries are embedded in numerous vibrant regional and national library and information specialist networks. The BU Libraries are active members within the Boston Library Consortium, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Coalition for Networked Information, and library staff at BU serve as engaged thought-leaders on a wide breadth of library management and service areas across diverse communities. Through the Libraries, BU also is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Northeast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL), HathiTrust, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), the OCLC Research Library Partnership, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS).
Boston University, a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), is one of the leading private research and teaching institutions in the world, with three primary campuses in the heart of Boston and programs around the globe. Chartered in 1869, the University is home to more than 33,000 students from more than 130 countries, 375,000 living alumni, 10,000 faculty and staff, and 17 schools and colleges.