IRIS Photos

Position Available September 2005

Director of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach
 Cornell University Library (CUL) seeks a visionary and knowledgeable leader for a newly formed department that will shape the quality and character of library services in the two principal libraries supporting both the humanities and social sciences at Cornell. Cornell University Library is among the top ten research libraries in North America and is located in scenic Ithaca in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The town and university offer a unique cosmopolitan and international atmosphere in a beautiful natural setting of waterfalls, gorges, and lakes. Cornell University Library is a leading academic research library with outstanding collections, service and instructional programs, and a leader in digital library applications. The library constitutes a major university resource for learning, teaching and research, and serves a faculty of 1,600 and a student body of approximately 19,000. It holds a distinctive collection approaching 8 million volumes in 20 libraries and has a budget of over $50 million. Supporting this operation are over 200 librarians, archivists and other professional staff, 300 library assistants, and 150 FTE student employees.

The Director of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach will oversee an operating budget of $1.5 million and a staff of 14 librarians, 8 support staff, and many student workers. Formed in April 2005 as a merger of the existing departments of Reference, Collection Development, and Instruction, the Department highlights the emerging importance of outreach as an approach that binds the other functional areas together. The unification of the Department formalizes the close working relations among colleagues in the former units and the cross-functional responsibilities carried out by increasing numbers of librarians at Cornell. The Department is moving toward physically combined office suite in the 2005-2006 academic year.

The Department currently provides in-person reference services in Olin and Uris libraries and innovative digital services to the Cornell community. The staff responded to over 40,000 research queries last year, serving the primary needs of over two dozen departments and programs in the social sciences and humanities. Instruction services reached more than 4,000 participants in over 300 sessions in the 2004-2005 academic year. The Department supports several facilities, including an Electronic Text Center in Olin Library, the Electronic Classroom in Uris Library, a larger demonstration-style classroom in Olin Library, and the new Cornell Library Collaborative Learning Computer Laboratory (CL)3. (CL)3 is used for classes engaged in collaborative computing and serves as a high-end multimedia computer lab, which attracted 10,000 users in its first ten months of operation.

More than 45 selectors build the CUL collections; more than 20 are affiliated with Olin and Uris libraries; and 10 are members of the Department of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach. The Department represents selectors and collections within Olin and Uris libraries, coordinating collection development efforts in collaboration with CUL’s Associate University Librarian for Collections and in conjunction with CUL’s subject-based selection teams. The Department also provides certain administrative services for collection development across CUL.

The Department’s outreach services are primarily aimed at Cornell-affiliated faculty, students, and staff, but are also targeted at populations outside the Cornell community. The Department’s outreach goals are to effectively promote awareness of general and specific information services for these populations; to build networks of support and advocacy across campus for curriculum, research, and scholarly communication interests; and to foster increased use of scholarly information resources among all targeted populations of users.

The Director of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach will report to the Associate University Librarian for Instruction, Research, and Information Services (IRIS), who administers the largest organizational entity within CUL and provides system-wide leadership in public services. IRIS is comprised of seven unit libraries, the offsite storage facility, and several departments and divisions that provide system-wide support in preservation, research and assessment, intellectual property issues, media, maps, access, and interlibrary loan. IRIS also manages information services for Olin, Uris, and Kroch Asia libraries, which house CUL’s largest collections in the humanities and social sciences.

Responsibilities of the Director: The Director of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach will maintain the library’s reputation for excellence by creatively building new services and relationships that anticipate and respond to changes in the direction of higher education and the technological revolution. The Department will engage Cornell’s research and teaching mission by providing exceptional content, expanded access, responsive services, collaborative learning opportunities, and innovative partnerships with faculty, students, and staff. The Director will be responsible for the overall administration, planning, evaluation, and staffing of the Department’s four functional areas. Working closely with the departmental coordinators for those areas, the Director will articulate the objectives and activities of this new department, developing new administrative and service staffing models where appropriate.

As a senior administrator, the Director will serve on the IRIS Cabinet, which provides general oversight to all of IRIS, setting policy, launching new initiatives, and engaging in long-term planning. The Director will also serve on the Public Services Executive Committee (PSEC), which coordinates public service activity for CUL as a whole, and will act as the PSEC liaison to the Reference and Outreach Committee. As needed, the Director will also provide leadership on various CUL committees, groups, tasks forces or initiatives.

Qualifications: All librarians at Cornell must promote effective relationships with colleagues, their respective campus constituencies, and appropriate donors. They must also actively participate in professional associations and/or carry out research and publication in their subject field.

For more information please visit crio.library.cornell.edu.

Requirements: MLS or appropriate graduate degree. Minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience in managing a public services department in a major research library. Excellent administrative abilities, including leadership, collaborative, and organizational strength; effective supervisory and management skills; and well-developed interpersonal and communication skills. A demonstrated commitment to public service and collection building at the research library level, ideally in the humanities or social sciences. Relevant experience in the promotion of new technologies. Clear evidence of initiative and an enthusiasm for working cooperatively with colleagues in a complex administrative system. A demonstrated capacity to contribute to the field of academic librarianship, to develop and promote the use of a very large research collection through new initiatives, to interact effectively with other library administrators, and to work with students, faculty, staff and visiting scholars.

Benefits: Comprehensive benefits package including 22 vacation days, 11 paid holidays, health insurance, life insurance, and university retirement contributions.

Application: Applications requested by February 28, 2006. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Salary and rank will be dependent upon qualifications and experience. To apply visit http://www.ohr.cornell.edu/jobs/, search under the job category of Librarians, and select posting number 4424. Follow the instructions for online submission including a cover letter, resume, and the names, phone numbers, and addresses for three references.

For further information contact Susan Markowitz, Director of Library Human Resources, 201 Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-5301.

Cornell University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer strongly committed to diversity.

We value qualified candidates who can bring to our community a variety of backgrounds and experiences.