Boston College Libraries are seeking a Data Services Librarian to join our Digital Scholarship Group (DSG). As a member of the DSG, the Data Services Librarian collaborates on designing and driving initiatives, providing current services, and is a valued voice in DSG strategic planning. This position is highly collaborative within the DSG, throughout the Libraries, particularly in the cohort (which consists of the DSG, instruction team, and subject liaisons), and across campus. This position will also be a major contributor to department outreach efforts and relationship-building. (Apply on the BC career site.)
The Data Services Librarian is primarily responsible for DSG collaborations and services related to data gathering, manipulation, management, curation, documentation, and skills training. Such activities include consulting on faculty and student data-driven projects; providing data skills training on data manipulation and management methods, best practices, and tools to faculty and staff; providing data skills instruction for undergraduate and graduate courses; and driving library-based curricula development (i.e., library instruction and modules) and resource creation/collection for data-centric and data science programs.
A large component of this position will involve working closely with a fellow Data Services Librarian and the DSG head on endeavors to grow existing data services and find new ways for the BC community to engage with data critically. It is important that the person in this role is comfortable working across disciplines with a range of data types, including economic and business-related data, which is in high demand from our Economics and Carroll School of Management students.
Requirements
- A master’s degree in Library and Information Science or a closely related, data-intensive research field, plus 2-3 years of relevant experience;
- Demonstrated experience in
- Providing data consultation, curation, management, cleaning, and mining services;
- Using data and related technologies to support teaching or research;
- Working with numeric data in an academic, scientific, or corporate environments;
- The ability to engage with research across a variety of disciplines, including economics and business, and a range of audiences, from undergraduate and graduate students to faculty and staff;
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
Prefered
- Experience working in academic libraries;
- Experience working with big data, survey microdata, text data, or similarly complex data;
- Experience working with library data resources, data subscription platforms (like WRDS), and publicly available data (like FRED);
- Knowledge of geospatial data and GIS technologies;
- Demonstrated experience in
- Providing data skills training and classroom instruction (oral, written, and video tutorials, etc.);
- Data visualization and communication;
- Data cleaning, creation, and analysis using coding languages such as Python or R;
FAQ
- What is the department’s culture like?
- We are highly collaborative, kind, and like to joke a lot while also being very focused on our work. Competitiveness is not our thing.
- Do I need a Master’s degree in Library Science or Information Science?
- No, you can have a graduate degree in a closely related, data-intensive research field, instead.
- Should I apply for this position if I don’t have all of the listed preferred qualifications?
- If you feel like you have what it takes, yes!
- What is BC’s work-at-home policy?
- We get one day a week to work from home after 6 months of employment.
- Is there financial support for professional development and conferences?
- Yes.
- When does the position start?
- Ideally, the person would start by the end of August/beginning of September when the fall semester starts. (That said, we can be somewhat flexible, especially when someone is making a long distrance move.)
- When can I expect to hear from you?
- We try to move as quickly as we can and typically start setting up first-round interviews about three to four weeks after the job is posted.