Associate Museum Librarian, Cataloging and Metadata

Location: New York

About the Metropolitan Museum of Art The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.

Since its founding in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. We are committed to fostering a collaborative and respectful work environment with a staff as diverse as the audiences we engage. Our staff members are art lovers who are passionate about working toward a common goal: creating the most dynamic and inspiring art museum in the world.

At The Met, every staff member – from security officers to researchers to scientists and beyond – lives by our core values of respect, inclusivity, collaboration, excellence, and integrity.

Respect:
Engage one another with collegiality, empathy, and kindness, always.

Inclusivity:
Ensure that all are and feel welcome and valued.

Collaboration:

Reach across boundaries to exchange ideas and work together toward our shared mission.

Excellence:
Lead the cultural world in quality and expertise—and inspire curiosity and creativity.

Integrity:
Hold ourselves to the highest moral standards, admit when we fall short, and then evolve.

ABOUT WATSON LIBRARYThomas J. Watson Library is The Met's research library. With its collection of more than one million volumes, extensive digital collections, and online resources, Watson Library is one of the world's most comprehensive art libraries. The library's holdings reflect the global and encyclopedic nature of The Met, with books ranging in date from the late fifteenth century to current scholarship, in all fields covered by The Met.

The library's mission is to support the research activities of the Museum staff and to offer access and outstanding services to an international community of students and scholars. The staff of the Sherman Fairchild Center for Book Conservation are responsible for the preservation of Watson’s collection, and for other Met departmental collections.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:

This position performs original and complex copy cataloging adhering to current national and international standards (e.g., RDA, LCNAF, LCSH, PCC); engages in name authority record creation (NACO); contributes to the department’s continued engagement with reparative cataloging practices; and increases awareness, discoverability, and use of the library’s collections through publications, presentations, programs, digitization, and social media.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:

Applies specialized subject and metadata expertise, and performs original and complex copy cataloging of library material;

Creates high-quality descriptive and technical metadata in MARC and non-MARC formats for physical and digital collections, including serials;

Performs original and complex copy cataloging for print and electronic materials following RDA standards in all subjects collected by the library, including materials in Romance and other European languages;

Creates and enhances LC/NACO records, and participates in linked data initiatives involving NACO, Wikidata, and other vocabularies;

Creates TMS records for library material that is exhibited publicly;

Plays a leading role in cataloging material from all Departmental Libraries, as well as managing projects related to the handling of Departmental Library projects;

Increases awareness, discoverability, and use of the library’s collections through publications, presentations, programs, and social media;

Contributes to the metadata creation of the library’s digital collections;

Assists in coordinating the cataloging and processing of…