Description
About the University:
Established in 1923, Texas Tech University is a Carnegie R1 (very high research activity) Doctoral/Research-Extensive, Hispanic Serving, and state-assisted institution. Located on a beautiful 1,850-acre campus in Lubbock, a city in West Texas with a growing metropolitan-area population of over 300,000, the university enrolls over 40,000 students with 33,000 undergraduate and 7,000 graduate students. As the primary research institution in the western two-thirds of the state, Texas Tech University is home to 10 colleges, the Schools of Law and Veterinary Medicine, and the Graduate School. The flagship of the Texas Tech University System, Texas Tech is dedicated to student success by preparing learners to be ethical leaders for a diverse and globally competitive workforce. It is committed to enhancing the cultural and economic development of the state, nation, and world.
Referred to as the “Hub City” because it serves as the educational, cultural, economic, and health care hub of the South Plains region, Lubbock boasts a diverse population and a strong connection to community, history, and land. With a mild climate, highly rated public schools, and a low cost of living, Lubbock is a family-friendly community that is ranked as one of the best places to live in Texas. Lubbock is home to a celebrated and ever-evolving music scene, a vibrant arts community, and is within driving distance of Dallas, Austin, Santa Fe, and other major metropolitan cities. Lubbock’s Convention & Visitors Bureau provides a comprehensive overview of the Lubbock community and its resources, programs, events, and histories.
About the College:
Texas Tech University Libraries serve as a vital partner with students and faculty in their learning endeavors. The University Libraries' system comprises: (1) University Library, (2) Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, (3) Architecture Library, and (4) Peters Family Legacy Library within the Student Enrichment Center. The University Library is a patent and trademark depository and is one of two regional depositories for U.S. government documents in Texas. The central focus of the Texas Tech University Libraries is to make available 3.72 million physical volumes, electronic resources, special collections and archives, and to offer services to students and faculty that enable academic and research success.
About the Department/School/Area:
The Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library was officially established in 1955. The building is housed to the north of the University Library. Areas of the archive are: the Southwest Collection, the University Archives, the Oral History Collection, Rare Books, the Sowell Collection, the Southwest Music Archive and Digital Scholarship Services.
Position Description:
The University Libraries at Texas Tech University invites applications for a full-time, 12-month, tenure-track, Assistant Librarian – Digital Curation to begin August 1, 2026. While appointed to this position, you will accrue vacation and will be required to report leave monthly following TTU’s Operating Policy 70.01 and TTU System Regulation 07.12. Since you will accrue vacation, you will follow a staff holiday schedule, which is available here: https://www.depts.ttu.edu/hr/empbenefits/holidayschedule.php.
This position is responsible for digital projects in association with the Digital Scholarship Lab at Texas Tech University Libraries. The Digital Curation Librarian will liaise with archivists, librarians, faculty, and staff to develop and implement workflows and procedures to digitize, describe, and preserve archival collections. Digitally born materials may also be a factor in projects. Guides the metadata, processing, documenting, and auditing work of the Digital Scholarship Lab in a leadership role with student assistants and interns.
Major/Essential Functions:
In line with TTU’s strategic priorities to engage and empower a diverse student body, enable innovative research and creative activities, and transform lives and communities through outreach and engaged scholarship, applicants should have experience working with diverse student populations at the undergraduate and/or graduate levels within individual or across the areas of teaching, research/creative activity, and service.
As a faculty member in the University Libraries you will be expected to:
Digital Scholarship:
While working closely with the Director and Lab Manager, supports, manages, and coordinates daily operations in the Digital Scholarship Lab.
Designs, documents and oversees efficient digital production workflows supporting the creation of digital objects that conform to digital library standards.
Ensures digitization projects proceed according to their respective schedules and maintains documentation on digitization best practices.
Liaises with TTU faculty, staff, and students across a variety of fields to help create well-organized project layouts and progression expectations. Acts as an advocate for accessible digital scholarship.
Assists with additional project responsibilities such as metadata creation, document scanning, processing, quality review, and audit.
Creates, maintains, and revises documentation pertaining to project details and specific workflows.
Communication:
Communicates with vendors to investigate and recommend digitization hardware and software.
Maintains excellent written and oral communication with library faculty and staff. Disseminates information that is clear to all levels of library faculty and staff in the form of email updates, attendance at faculty meetings, and other appropriate means.
Open Scholarship:
Advocates for open scholarship, open science, and open access resources within the Library and the TTU campus community as it relates to digital scholarship. Serves in a liaison role between the Digital Scholarship Lab and faculty and students outside the Libraries.
Participates in strategic outreach in collaboration with other Library faculty, [such as the Open Educational Resources Librarian], in a supporting role to promote tools and services of open scholarship and open data such as ThinkTech, ORCID Identifiers, Digital Object Identifiers, and TTU’s Dataverse Collection.
Keeps up to date with established and new open discipline-specific scholarship.
Tenure & Promotion:
This is a tenure track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Librarian, and the librarian is a member of the Texas Tech University Libraries' faculty. Librarian faculty serve on committees and task forces both at the library and the university level and take leadership roles in local, state, and national/international library and academic societies and organizations. Librarians are expected to share expertise and results of research with other information professionals via development of new technologies, publication in refereed journals, poster sessions, and/or presentations at professional meetings.
Requirements
Required Qualifications:
1.ALA-accredited Master’s degree in Library and Information Science (MLS/MLIS)
Preferred Qualifications:
In addition to the required qualifications, individuals with the following preferred qualifications are strongly encouraged to apply:
1. Familiarity with digital content management systems such as CONTENTdm or DSpace.
2. Familiarity with metadata standards.
3. Familiarity with digitization standards and best practices.
4. Familiarity with open scholarship resources.
5. Experience with workflow development and project management.
*Salary commensurate with experience.
