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Acq. Oper. Specialist @ Univ. of Illinois

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    Posted: 05/Dec/2014 at 6:44pm
Acquisitions Operations Specialist
Academic Professional
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library


Position Available: The expected start date is as soon as possible after the closing date. This is a 100%, twelve-month, academic professional position.

Responsibilities: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks an innovative and knowledgeable professional to support the daily operational and cross functional needs for monograph acquisitions work at the University Library. The unit has primary responsible for obtaining, tracking, processing, providing access to and insuring payment for specific materials acquired for the Library collections. The Operations Specialist will work in the Acquisitions unit within the Technical Services Division (TSD) of the Library. The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting the staff work required to order, receive, set invoice workflow, and process the Library collection materials for one time orders and those monograph blanket orders and approval plans in place with vendors worldwide. The position directly supervises the two staff who manage two areas: 1) all firm orders, and 2) the profiled domestic orders, as well as their staff. The incumbent will also supervise 6 international order specialists who monitor blanket orders and catalog those materials. The position will work closely with the Library subject specialists to facilitate their work, while adhering to all campus and state rules on procurement, ethics laws and guidelines, and in monitoring the collection funds used for these orders. This is an Academic Professional position for a librarian who possesses the requisite skills, experience, and/or demonstrated knowledge from course work.

Acquisitions is a multi-functional operation and also includes e-resource management, new item copy cataloging, and a serials team, and is one of the more staff intensive units in the Library. It supports the work of over 45 bibliographers, and works within a complicated technical infrastructure to enable electronic data interchange with vendors worldwide to provide for efficient and accurate orders, bibliographic records, and invoices. This position reports to the Head of Acquisitions and also works closely with the Head of Content Access Management (CAM) and the Electronic Resources Librarian.

·        Working with the Head of Acquisitions, will manage the daily operations of the Acquisitions unit (24 FTE) in order to meet the Library’s ongoing collection needs. The unit has several work groups: 1. Firm orders for single titles (books, media and digital content) from any seller worldwide and in any language; 2. Blanket orders: profiles in place by region for core new titles from major vendors worldwide and in any language; 3. E-resources work done to manage online content order, access and maintenance, and the technical infrastructure behind it; 4. Serials management for print titles worldwide, including irregularly numbered series. This position will assist in coordinating all the cross functional areas (for cross training and redundancy in case of vacancies) for these groups, and will directly manage two large functions: the firm and blanket order work.
·        Supervises two managers (who in turn supervise 5 staff members) as well as a growing team of cataloging and language specialists (6 FTE) who each are responsible for particular regions of the world as far as receiving, approving invoices for, and cataloging materials in the vernacular. Recruits, trains, supervises, and evaluates those staff, and provides opportunities for their professional development and growth.
·        Manages all monographic cataloging work flow in the unit and also supports analytics for series. Working with CAM will train, educate, review and troubleshoot the staff bibliographic and holdings work, ensuring adherence to national standards as well as local practice. Works directly with the Technical Services programmer AP to manage bibliographic records obtained from external vendor sources. Updates profiles, performs regular record loads and quality control checks, and communicates changes to CARLI (Consortium for Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois, of which UIUC is a member) IT support. Also notifies staff and bibliographers as appropriate on any impact of this work.
·        Maintains effective business relationships with the major vendors for these two functional areas to troubleshoot any technical process, any payment issues, or in announcing fiscal year changes. Works with the unit head on any contractual agreement or RFP process as appropriate.
·        Oversees the daily flow of material in and out of the unit to be sure all proper controls are in place to identify, label, track, and account for any material in hand. Monitors, analyzes, and coordinates acquisitions data, statistics and other reports to assist in various assessment projects, to track orders, maintain the PO database, and to ensure timely and efficient service for patrons. Monitors all requests for facilities work and ensures a good working environment for the staff and safekeeping of all Library materials.
·        Works collaboratively with other Library staff and faculty across the libraries, including IT, Technical Services and Publics Services functions, to share information, to identify communication gaps, and to suggest tools, workflows or programs for improving access to the Library’s collections. That work also includes support for the maintenance of the documentation of Acquisitions workflows, policies and procedures needed by bibliographers. Assists the unit head in implementing outreach and educational programs for the unit, for the library staff and bibliographers, and as appropriate to users.
·        Will represent the unit head at library meetings when needed, including regional, national, and international professional organizations of relevance to acquisitions, and participates in regional, national, and international consortial collaborations

Qualifications:
Required:
·        ALA-accredited Master’s degree in library or information science OR a combination of relevant experience and graduate-level coursework in another field.
·        Experience directly supervising full-time staff.
·        Ability to communicate and work well with colleagues across units and ability to understand variant perspectives on shared work.
·        Strong interpersonal, analytical, oral and written communication skills, and customer service skills.

Preferred:
·        A minimum of three years of library work experience with significant familiarity with library applications and procedures.
·        Experience with procurement processes at a high volume.
·        Customer service or educational background or experience with technical services file loading and management processes.
·        Familiarity with cataloging standards with demonstrated experience in applying those.
·        Experience with Microsoft Office applications.

Salary and Rank: Salary commensurate with credentials and experience.

Terms of Appointment: Twelve-month appointment; 24 annual vacation days; 11 annual paid holidays; 12 annual sick-leave days (cumulative), plus an additional 13 sick-leave days (non-cumulative) available, if needed, each year; health insurance requiring a small co-payment is provided to employee (with the option to purchase coverage for spouse and dependents); required participation in State Universities Retirement System (SURS) (8% of annual salary is withheld and is refundable upon termination), with several options for participation in additional retirement plans; newly-hired employees are covered by the Medicare portion of Social Security and are subject to its deduction.

Campus and Community: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a comprehensive and major public land-grant university (Doctoral/Research University-Extensive) that is ranked among the best in the world. Chartered in 1867, it provides undergraduate and graduate education in more than 150 fields of study, conducts theoretical and applied research, and provides public service to the state and the nation. It employs 3,000 faculty members who serve 31,000 undergraduates and 12,000 graduate and professional students; approximately 25% of faculty receives campus-wide recognition each year for excellence in teaching. More information about the campus is available at www.illinois.edu.

The University is located in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, which have a combined population of 100,000 and are situated about 140 miles south of Chicago, 120 miles west of Indianapolis, and 170 northeast of St. Louis. The University and its surrounding communities offer a cultural and recreational environment ideally suited to the work of a major research institution. For more information about the community, visit: <http://illinois.edu/about/community/community.html> or <http://www.ccchamber.org/>.

To Apply: To ensure full consideration, please complete your candidate profile at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload a letter of interest, resume, and contact information including email addresses for three professional references. Applications not submitted through this website will not be considered. For questions, please call: 217-333-8169.

Deadline : In order to ensure full consideration we urge candidates to submit application materials on or before January 5, 2015

Illinois is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with a disability. Illinois welcomes individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity. (www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu).


Donna Hoffman
Administrative Assistant
Library Human Resources
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1408 W. Gregory Dr. - Suite 127
Urbana, IL 61801

Phone: 217-333-5495
Cell: 217-621-9149
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