Description

The University of Minnesota Law Library seeks a focused, innovative, and motivated professional for the position of Scholarly Services Librarian. This position reports to the Associate Director for Research Services, and plays a central role in the Library’s efforts to support, preserve, and promote the scholarship of the Law School’s faculty, law journals, and research centers and institutes.

Responsibilities

The Scholarly Services Librarian has primary responsibility for monitoring the scholarship of the Law School’s faculty, and developing and implementing strategies that will maximize its discoverability and scholarly impact. Specific responsibilities include: assisting faculty members in creating and maintaining scholarly profiles; creating and maintaining faculty publication pages on the Law School’s website; managing the Faculty Scholarship collection in the Law School’s Scholarship Repository; serving as the Law School’s SSRN Administrator; and compiling information for the Law School Administration regarding faculty publication activity.

This position has primary responsibility for the management of the Law School’s Scholarship Repository, an open access repository on the Digital Commons platform. In addition to the Faculty Scholarship collection, the Repository includes collections of scholarship produced by the Law School’s journals, and research centers and institutes. Video recordings, papers, and other materials from selected Law School lectures, conferences, and other events are also contained in the Repository. The Scholarly Services Librarian works closely with faculty, student journal editors, and other members of the Law School community to develop and enhance the Repository’s collections. Specific responsibilities include: curating, preparing, and posting content; tracking faculty scholarship and obtaining copyright permissions; training student journal editors in maintaining their law journal repository collections; and coordinating with the Law School’s research centers and institutes in developing repository collections of their scholarly research materials.

This position facilitates the work of student editors and the University Libraries Publishing staff in developing and maintaining the law journals’ websites. The position also provides training and support for the use of reference and citation management tools such as Perma.cc and Zotero, by law students and faculty.

The Scholarly Services Librarian is a member of the Library’s Reference team, providing high-quality reference services to members of the Law School, the University community, and other patrons of the Law Library. Reference librarian duties include participating in a regularly scheduled reference desk rotation, including some weekend and evening hours; creating and maintaining library research guides using the LibGuides platform; teaching legal research in the Law School’s first-year Legal Research and Writing Program; providing, upon faculty request, specialized research guest lectures to law students and students enrolled in courses from other University departments; participating in collection development decision-making and initiatives at the request of the Associate Director for Collection Development; and other duties as assigned.

Professional librarians are hired under the University of Minnesota Academic Professional and Administrative employee classification system which may lead to promotion and continuous appointment. As described in the Law Library’s Criteria for Continuous Appointment and Promotion to Associate Librarian, the Scholarly Services Librarian contributes to advancement of the fields of law or library science through published scholarship; represents the Law Library, and is active in national and local law library professional organizations, and engages in Law School and University activities.

Salary competitive.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• J.D. from an A.B.A. accredited law school.
• M.L.S. degree from an A.L.A. accredited institution.
• Minimum of two years professional experience in an academic law library.
• Knowledge of current and emerging trends in the publication and promotion of legal scholarship.
• Knowledge of technical, policy, and copyright issues related to institutional open access repositories and promotion of scholarly publications or a strong demonstrated interest in developing expertise.
• Strong organizational skills, including time management skills, and effectiveness in balancing multiple assignments and projects.
• Meticulous attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and strong, demonstrated user-service orientation.
• Excellent analytical as well as written and oral communication skills.
• Demonstrated initiative, flexibility, and ability to work effectively both independently and as a team member.
• Evidence of exceptional legal research competency and the ability to deliver a high quality, comprehensive final product.
• Evidence of strong teaching and presentation skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience managing repository collections on the Digital Commons platform.
• Knowledge of current and developing technologies, standards, and practices in digital preservation.
• Experience in creating research guides on the LibGuides