Acquisitions and Collections Specialist

About Occidental College

Founded in 1887, Occidental is a nationally recognized, private college of the liberal arts and sciences, dedicated to providing a gifted and diverse group of students with a total educational experience of the highest quality -- one that prepares them for leadership in an increasingly complex, interdependent and pluralistic world.

What makes Occidental special? An intellectually rigorous academic environment. Small classroom settings where students collaborate with professors and their peers while pursuing or discovering their passion. A beautiful residential campus that offers students hands-on engagement with the cultural and intellectual resources of Los Angeles. A community open to stimulating conversation and divergent points of view. Some 2,100 students from 46 states and 28 countries choose from 41 majors and minors and participate in one the country’s top undergraduate research programs.

Oxy students routinely win top awards and fellowships; its first Rhodes Scholar was named in 1907. Dedicated to excellence and equity, Occidental also is one of the country’s most economically diverse campuses, according to the New York Times. Some 71 percent of Oxy students receive some form of financial aid; 20 percent are Pell Grant recipients; and 19 percent are the first in their family to attend college.

Title: Acquisitions and Collections Specialist

Department: Library Materials

Duration: Indefinite

Employment Status: Non-Exempt, Full Time, 40 hours per week

Job Summary

Reporting to the Director of Collections, Systems, The Acquisitions and Collections Specialist manage the purchasing, access, and lifecycle support for library resources in physical and electronic formats, and other materials needed in the Library. The Specialist places and tracks orders, reconciles and processes invoices in Oxy’s Library Services Platform, monitors expenditures, and provides regular budget reports to Library leadership. This role supports library selectors in using acquisitions tools and vendor platforms, negotiates licenses when needed, and activates eBooks and streaming content.

The Specialist serves as a liaison to faculty regarding course reserves and resource requests and provides timely communication on order status and processing. The role is part of a collections team that jointly receives and processes physical and electronic materials and completes physical processing and minor book repair tasks. The team also performs complex copy cataloging for new and donated materials by creating MARC records and maintaining accurate holdings data in Alma and OCLC World Cat and it supports collections maintenance, inventory, and weeding projects.

The Acquisitions and Collections Specialist trains and directs student assistants in physical processing and other collections related tasks.

This position is represented for purposes of collective bargaining by SEIU.

Job Duties

• 25% - Manage purchasing and request workflows for print, eBooks, streaming, and other library resources. Creates and tracks orders in Oxy’s Library Services Platform and vendor systems. Configures and maintains acquisitions tools and workflows to support library selectors and advance collection development goals.
  
  - (Essential)
• 25% - Receives, activates, and processes new resources and reconciles invoices for payment. Updates order, holdings, and item records in our Library Services Platform to reflect receipt, access, and processing status of new acquisitions. Compiles statistics on purchases for reporting.
  
  - (Essential)
• 25% - Basic and complex copy cataloging for all physical formats of library materials using MARC, AACR2, RDA, Library of Congress (LC) Classification, LC Subject Headings (LCSH), Library policy, and other relevant resources and standards. Creates and edits MARC records and maintains bibliographic, holdings, and item data to support discovery and fulfillment.
  
  - (Essential)
• 15% - Coordinates collections maintenance activities and collection management projects. Completes physical processing tasks such as covering books with mylar, book repair, and applying spine labels and stickers to library materials. Assists with…