Acquisitions & Metadata Specialist

Davidson College Library seeks an Acquisitions & Metadata Specialist to oversee the procurement and processing of new materials (one-time orders) in all formats, supporting the lifecycle of acquisitions from identification, ordering, resource description, invoicing, and shelf-ready processing. As the primary point of contact for purchase requests and incoming items, the Acquisitions & Metadata Specialist will proactively engage with faculty, staff, and students from across campus to expand access to resources and support projects that seek to refine our existing collections with an explicit emphasis on the values of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion.

There has never been a more exciting time to join our team! In fall 2027, the college's new George Lawrence Abernethy Library will transform how our campus community learns, creates, and connects. Guided by our organizational values, we work to advance the college's purpose in developing disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service. We do this by offering expertise, space, resources, and services that facilitate research, provide access to, and foster the creation of knowledge.

Our library staff play a critical role in expanding the global reach of traditional scholarship, preserving born-digital materials, supporting digital scholarship, and championing equitable and sustainable access to information. As Davidson embarks on a new transformative, campus-wide strategic plan, we are excited to explore how our expertise, programs, and resources will advance the college's key priorities. We take pride in our strong collaborations with campus partners such as the John Crosland Jr.

Center for Teaching and Learning, the Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good-strategic alliances that highlight the library's central role in the teaching and learning mission.

We are inspired by the college's public commitment to education and reconciliation. To create an inclusive learning community and to reflect the diversity of Davidson experiences, we collaborate on projects that tell the full history of our college, develop collections in partnership with students and faculty, and create meaningful community connections. We seek a thoughtful colleague who joins us in embracing a special set of responsibilities as we articulate the college's relationship to the past, confront our present moment, and chart a hopeful future.

How you will contribute:

Reporting to the Assistant Director of Collections & Discovery, the Acquisitions & Metadata Specialist plays a key role in the management of the library's acquisition workflows, including overseeing materials processing, bibliographic description, arrangement, inventorying, and collections maintenance. The Acquisitions & Metadata Specialist collaborates with the Research Collections Strategies team to identify opportunities to rethink the Library's collection management policies and the connections between resource acquisitions, course reserves, and resource sharing as we move toward the next iteration of Davidson College's library.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Supports acquisition & processing of orders in response to faculty and student requests and strategic acquisition initiatives: (50%)

* Processes all requests for one-time orders (physical and electronic) within vendor platforms and the library services platform.

* Creates and maintains accurate order information, identifying problems and undertaking corrective action.

* Performs basic cataloging for new orders, identifying and evaluating bibliographic records for quality, and makes additions to records to ensure adherence to local cataloging standards. May perform or support original cataloging & enhanced description of unique items without adequate existing description.

* Processes out-of-print and foreign language orders, confirms bibliographic information, identifies appropriate vendors, and evaluates resource costs.

* Communicates with vendors to resolve order-related issues including incorrect, damaged, or claimed items.

* Processes licensing requests for streaming media…