Institution: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Deadline: May 3, 2013
Position Availability: Immediately
Education: MLS or graduate coursework (MLS or area studies) and experience
Language: Fluency in Japanese
The UCLA Library seeks applications/nominations for the position of Japanese Studies Librarian.
Candidates applying by May 3, 2013 will be given first consideration.
Description of Institution and Library
One of ten University of California campuses, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is located in Westwood Village, approximately five miles from the Pacific Ocean near Santa Monica. Comprised of the College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools, the 419-acre campus features 174 buildings, including the Center for Health Sciences. UCLA has more than 6,600 faculty and academic staff and approximately 26,000 employees overall. Founded in 1919, UCLA offers 118 undergraduate degree programs and 200 graduate programs and has more than 26,100 undergraduates and 11,900 graduate students. Academic excellence, faculty distinction, and a comprehensive curriculum are hallmarks of UCLA, which is a member of the Association of American Universities. Among the faculty are six Nobel Laureates, four National Medal of Science winners, eleven MacArthur Grant winners, and 46 Guggenheim Fellows. UCLA is California’s largest university and is a model for public institutions of higher education. As the tenth largest employer in the region, UCLA generates almost $9 in economic activity for every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA and generates an annual $6 billion economic impact on the greater Los Angeles region.
Consistently ranked among the top 10 academic research libraries in North America, the UCLA Library is comprised of 8 major libraries and 13 library wide departments and the Southern Regional Library Facility, the remote storage facility for the southern UC campuses, all of which report to the University Librarian. In addition, there are 12 affiliated library units located on the campus. There are approximately 120 librarians on the campus, and the UCLA Library has a staff of approximately 350, and approximately 400 – 500 student employees. The Library has an organizational structure that includes the use of teams in conjunction with departments and units. The library collection consists of more than 9 million volumes and more than 78,000 current serial titles and an aggressively expanding electronic resources collection. The Library’s annual budget is in excess of $51 million; more than $9.5 million supports the acquisition of print and digital material, and the library is part of the California Digital Library. The UCLA Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
As a partner in the creation and dissemination of knowledge, the Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library supports for world class research and instruction of the East Asian Studies programs by selecting, organizing, and making the resources available. The Library is home for over 744,000 volumes in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages books, microforms, newspapers and serials in the humanities and social sciences, currently receives over 2,000 serial titles annually and has access to 48 licensed online databases. The East Asian collection is strong in Chinese archaeology, religion (especially Buddhism), folklore, fine arts, pre-modern history and classical literature. The Library’s Japanese collection with 194,800 items, is strong in Buddhism, fine arts, literature, history, and folklore, with recent growing strength added in modern intellectual history and cultural studies. In recent years, through collaboration with the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, the Library was able to have a number of notable achievements, including the acquisitions of the Prange Collection microform set that consists of reproduction of 13,783 magazines and 18,047 newspapers published in Japan between 1945 and 1949; the donation of over 8,000 volumes of Takabatake Collection from Japan, a donation of a rare 1950 wire recordings of Japanese popular music, and the acquisition of the Hashikura collection.
The UCLA East Asian Library is among the top ten East Asian academic research libraries in North America. It currently has a staff of 3 FTE librarians, 4.75 FTE library assistants, and a number of student assistants.
Position Duties
The individual appointed to this position will provide academic support services to faculty and students who are engaged in research, teaching and learning in Japanese Studies. The incumbent will collaborate with other EAL librarians and staff as well as with the UCLA Library community at large to support the information needs of our primary constituents. Reporting to the Head of the EAL, the successful candidate will assume the following main responsibilities:
Engagement and Service: Engage with faculty and students to have a thorough understanding of their teaching, learning, and research needs; become embedded in methodology and bibliography classes to offer services where teaching takes place; keep abreast of program changes and translate faculty and student needs into collection development policies and actions; collaborate with faculty to integrate information literacy skills into the curriculum; develop and deliver library instruction to support teaching, learning, and research; collaborate with faculty and librarian in the design, implementation, and maintenance of online tools and services that meet the needs of both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary research communities; collaborate with faculty, librarian, and students to develop digital projects, research initiatives, programs, and exhibitions.
Collection Development and Management: Provide leadership for collection development and management of the Japanese studies collection; establish and maintain directions and priorities for the collection and periodically review and assesse the collections’ needs; stay abreast of scholarship in the field and develop collections that support teaching, learning, and research; pay particular attention to new areas of development for the Terasaki Center and for the field in general; seek grants and other development opportunities to acquire collections; review original Japanese language cataloging and authority records; serve as the subject specialist to provide in-depth reference and research guidance to faculty and students working in the field.
Outreach and Collaboration: Seek opportunities to engage with local community organizations to promote Japanese collections held at the UCLA Library; identify grant opportunities and seek funding to support EAL community-centered initiatives and projects; reach out to local community and organizations within Los Angeles to develop special collections that support teaching and research needs.
Professional engagement: Represent the UCLA Library in regional, national, and international professional organizations of relevance to Japanese or East Asian studies; participate in conferences and classes to build additional skills and update knowledge of changing technologies and development in the field of Japanese studies librarianship; participate in regional, national, and international consortia collaborations.
Required Qualifications
- ALA-accredited Master’s Degree in Library and Information Sciences OR significant graduate-level coursework toward such a degree OR equivalent education and experience (subject expertise combined with professional library education and/or experience).
- Minimum three years’ experience working in an academic or research library.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English and interpersonal skills.
- Demonstrated commitment to user-centered library services.
- Demonstrated evidence of initiative and flexibility.
- Excellent organizational, time, and project management skills.
- Capacity to thrive in the exciting, ambiguous, future-oriented environment of a world-class research institution and to respond effectively to changing needs and priorities.
- Demonstrated commitment to professional development and service through strong interest in local or national committee work, research and publication.
- Ability to meet the University of California criteria for advancement and promotion of librarians.
- Ability to work with faculty, students, and staff from diverse cultural backgrounds in a dynamic and complex environment within a large organization.
- A thorough understanding of research and teaching needs.
- A thorough understanding of publication trends and characteristics in the field, particularly scholarly publications in the arts, humanities and socials sciences.
- Fluent in Japanese language.
Desired Qualifications
- Advanced degree in a humanities or social sciences discipline, with an emphasis on East Asian or Japanese studies, or equivalent knowledge in a related field of study combined with library experience.
- Record of teaching, scholarship, and active leadership in professional organizations.
- Experience in performing reference, instruction and collection development in related subjects in an academic or research library.
- Experience in creating subject or course guides.
- Knowledge of one or more East Asian languages such as Chinese or Korean.
- Experience in assessing, evaluating, and negotiating digital resources in East Asian studies.
- Experience in collaborating with academic or research institutions in Japan for material or staff exchange.
- Experience in cataloging Japanese materials.
For full details and to apply, see original posting on HigherEdJobs.com.
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