Perma.cc Legal Digital Scholarship Project Manager

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Join a community that combines excellence in legal education and scholarship with a deep commitment to justice. Here at Harvard Law School (HLS), you’ll find an environment that values who you are and encourages you to grow, inspire others, and make a meaningful impact. Wherever you are in your career journey, HLS is a place where you can thrive, contribute, and be part of something bigger.

The Library Innovation Lab (LIL) seeks an information professional to serve as the Perma.cc Legal Digital Scholarship Project Manager. Located at the Harvard Law Library, LIL is a fun and collaborative lab with a broad mission focused on re‑envisioning how knowledge is created, preserved, and accessed. Please visit our website (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below). to get a sense of our current projects and activities.

This one‑year position will focus on building and launching a system for preserving and sharing legal scholarship using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) within the Perma.cc service.

Perma.cc has provided web citation preservation to the legal community for over a decade. The adoption of DOI—standard elsewhere in scholarly publishing—is increasingly critical in law, with Bluebook requirements on the horizon. The project will design a plan for incorporating DOI into the Perma.cc ecosystem, coordinate the planning and rollout of DOI minting, and document sustainable operational models for the future.

• Review current practices at HLSL and Perma.cc and identify requirements for DOI assignment to legal scholarship and web materials.

• Track developments in legal citation standards related to DOI and ensure project alignment.

• Evaluate options for DOI minting (such as Cross Ref membership or other registration methods) and make recommendations.

• Develop and document criteria and workflows for DOI assignment, in line with existing standards in other fields.

• Lead outreach to law journals, faculty, clinics, and other stakeholders to establish procedures for DOI registration.

• Serve as primary liaison to DOI registration agencies to arrange necessary permissions and clarify technical needs.

• Collaborate with technical teams  and HLSL to design and pilot the integration of DOI processes into existing systems.

• Prepare clear documentation and policy recommendations for the ongoing management of DOIs at HLSL and Perma.cc.

• Prepare interim and final reports summarizing actions taken, challenges, and recommendations for future service management.

• Minimum of five years’ post‑secondary education or relevant work experience

• Experience with scholarly communication, metadata, or digital preservation.
• Familiarity with DOI and other persistent identifier systems.
• Strong organizational, project management, and communication skills.
• Experience in law libraries, legal publishing, or digital repository management.

This is a one‑year term appointment subject to funding and departmental need.

Full‑time

Harvard University is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position.

Identity, Education

This position is open to either remote applicants, or in‑person applicants with a hybrid schedule. Remote work is permitted for applicants living more than 50 miles from Harvard campus, based on business needs and manager approval. All remote work must be performed within a state in which Harvard is registered to do business (CA, CT, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VA, VT and WA).

Travel may be required for this position as needed, including for quarterly…