Columbia University

Arts and Humanities Digital Initiatives Postdoctoral Fellow

The Columbia University Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS), part of the Libraries/Information Services’ Digital Programs and Technology Services (DPTS) division, is seeking to fill a postdoctoral/postgraduate position involving digital initiatives in the arts and humanities at the university. The fellowship, which begins in Summer 2009, runs for two years, with the possibility of a one-year extension.

Reporting to the Digital Initiatives Manager, the Arts and Humanities Digital Initiatives Postdoctoral Fellow is responsible for:

• Understanding the digital and multimedia efforts in use and under development by the arts and humanities sectors at Columbia University and ascertaining possible technology solutions to assist in research and scholarship

• Helping develop CDRS’ integrated services platform for research, collaboration, publication, and scholarly communication within an arts and humanities context, including providing input on overcoming the challenges of (among other issues) ingest and self-identification, automated metadata generation, discovery and use of multilingual and multimedia objects across distributed repositories, and contextual semantic interpretation

• Fostering collaboration between CDRS and among academic departments and library staff, with a focus on the arts and humanities, including developing connections between CDRS and the planned Digital Humanities Center

• Working with others both within CDRS and externally to continually enhance CDRS’ services through ongoing identification and assessment of emerging technologies, researchers’ and scholars’ functional and sociological requirements, user-centered design, and usage analytics

• Working with the head of the Scholarly Communications Program, with the Libraries’ subject specialists, and with arts and humanities departments to create and present educational seminars on e-research issues, such as access to scholarly literature, intellectual property and copyright, and traditional and alternative forms of publication

• Identifying funding opportunities and contributing to the writing of grants

• Presenting and publishing papers on CDRS’ approach and work

MINIMAL REQUIREMENTS
• Ph.D. or other terminal degree in a discipline within the arts or humanities, granted prior to beginning the fellowship
• First-hand knowledge of the academic research and publishing process
• Active involvement in the arts or humanities scholarly community
• Exceptional communication (verbal and written) skills

PREFERRED REQUIREMENTS
• Strong interest in emerging technologies
• Experience with client- or user-centered design processes
• Familiarity with issues in scholarly communication, especially those of cyberscholarship
• Experience in identifying appropriate funding opportunities and in writing successful grant applications

TO APPLY
The following application materials must be e-mailed to libjobs@columbia.edu on or before 30 November 2008:

• Cover letter outlining your interest in the position
• Curriculum vita
• Three (3) letters of reference