Assistant Librarian Special Collections

The Special Collections department supports the research needs of Tufts Arts & Sciences and Engineering academic departments, fostering curricular and co-curricular connections that engage the Tufts community with our special and distinctive collections. The collection at Tisch Library includes medieval manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books from many of the most important figures in printing history, works of early modern science and medicine, travel and exploration, philosophy, religion, history, politics, art, theater, and music; a large collection of 19th century American pamphlets; facsimiles of Japanese and Islamic manuscripts; and personal libraries from important figures in Tufts' history. In the last ten years we have significantly grown the collection through careful acquisition in close partnership with faculty.

The Special Collections Librarian provides instruction with special collections materials and contributes to collection development decisions. They design and coordinate outreach activities and events featuring special collections from Tisch, SMFA, and Lilly Libraries. The Assistant Librarian may also participate in the library's liaison program.

Essential Functions:

• Provides direct support to faculty and students through instruction, research consultations, exhibit design, and collection curation.
• Promotes Special Collections initiatives, collections, programming, and services through tours, presentations, publications, social media, and other means.
• With others, develops and maintains calendar of events and programming for Tisch Special Collections, involving Lilly and SMFA staff and collections.
• Conducts research related to collections to support classes, exhibits, and participation in cooperative databases.
• May serve as a liaison to assigned academic departments, leading information literacy instruction sessions, developing collections, and providing research consultations.
• Supervises student workers who support the duties of this position.

Basic Requirements:

• Knowledge and skills as typically acquired by a Master's degree in Library or Information Science from an ALA-accredited institution; or a Master's degree in history, art history, literature, classical studies, or related humanistic field, with research experience in manuscripts and/or early printed books
• Minimum of 2 years' experience working with special collections
• Ability to plan and organize work effectively and to assign appropriate priorities to tasks
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• Reliable, detail-oriented, and self-motivated

Preferred Qualifications:

• Reading knowledge of Latin, medieval Latin, French, or Italian
• Experience teaching in an academic library or higher education setting
• Demonstrated facility with design for library outreach
• Coursework in paleography
• Experience using Aeon, Omeka, and Alma