Institution: Princeton University
Location: Princeton, NJ
Education: Associate’s required, BA preferred
Posted: 09/06/2013
Application Due: 09/20/2013
Type: Full Time

Position Summary: The East Asian Library at Princeton University is seeking a diligent, motivated, and independent individual to be the Library Supervisor of its Public Services unit.

This is an important position in a unique library at Princeton due to its extensive and specialized collections, space limitations, and independent interlibrary loan and technical services operations. The East Asian Library, one of the largest and busiest branch libraries on the Princeton Campus, is one of the most famous collections of its kind in the United States, serving not only faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students at Princeton on all kinds of research on China, Japan and Korea but also, visiting scholars from across the globe.

This position is responsible for many aspects of the daily operations of the East Asian Library’s Public Services Unit, while balancing regular interruptions from the public. This includes, but is not limited to circulation, shelving, and the physical upkeep of the library, as well as a full range of supervisory duties: the hiring, training and evaluation of 2 part-time staff members and 20-25 students and applying relevant policies regarding patrons.

The incumbent will manage the print and electronic reserves and interlibrary Loan services of the East Asian Library, and is responsible for the Document Delivery and Borrow Direct functions of the EAL. He/she is also responsible for the receiving and maintenance of Western-language material at the EAL. As with all aspects of library services, change and the demand for new skills are constants.

The tasks assigned to the incumbent of this position are particularly challenging because the EAL offers a wide array of services, yet has very few permanent employees in Public Services. More than half of the EAL’s physical collection is stored in off-site storage, thus the number of skills needed to fulfill and prioritize these tasks (some daily, some seasonal) is large. Responsibility for all these tasks assumes complete knowledge of library policies, procedures, and the responsibilities of other units within the library. In addition, since patron interaction is one of its core functions, creativity and tact are essential. Maintenance of the physical appearance of this very full library involves the constant rearrangement of spaces and other creative responses to congested areas.

Essential Qualifications: Position Requires:

• Associates or other two-year degree
• At least 1 to 3 years of practical work with supervisory experience, including training of staff
• At least one year of academic, research or corporate library work
• Ability to make decisions and work independently, as well as working well as a team leader
• Strong organizational and excellent service-oriented interpersonal skills
• An ability to prioritize workflows and respond creatively to rapidly changing circumstances, on a daily, seasonal and yearly basis
• Ability to deal with pressure, deadlines, and multitasking
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English
• Basic to intermediate computer skills (Microsoft Office), and the demonstrated ability to learn new computer programs as needed
• Must be able to lift and shelve books (using stepladders) and handle large book trucks holding approximately 300 books (other physical tasks may involve careful handling of heavy and dusty books)
• Aptitude for working with bibliographic citations in several languages
• Education Required: Associate’s Degree

Preferred Qualifications: Preferred:

• B.A. degree
• Extensive experience in a similar educational (academic), preferably, library position (and involving the supervision of students, interaction with faculty and patrons) beyond the one year requirement
• Knowledge of MARC record structures and catalog systems in general, and of Ex Libris’s Voyager integrated library system and OCLC (WorldCat?) in particular
• Knowledge of ILLiad, ORRS or similar (back-end reserves processing software), Blackboard or similar course management system, the Electronic Reserve Application (database) or similar software, Ariel, and Adobe Acrobat
• Some experience with and knowledge of East Asia (languages, cultures, literature, etc.)

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