Special Collections Assistant

Join Our Mission at Augustana College At Augustana College, we don’t just educate students - we empower them. As a nationally recognized college of the liberal arts and sciences, we invest in engaged learning, maximizing students's potential, and building strong community partnerships—the driving forces of our Bold & Boundless Strategic Plan (2024-29).

For our 2,500 students, Augustana offers a collaborative and student‑focused environment, in which faculty and staff play an active role in shaping futures through hands‑on learning, mentorship and leadership development. Located on a scenic, wooded campus in Rock Island, Illinois, Augustana is part of the vibrant Quad‑Cities metropolitan area (pop. 470,000), about a 3‑hour drive from Chicago.

We seek mission‑driven professionals who are passionate about student success, innovation and making an impact. If you thrive in an environment that values curiosity, collaboration and the power of transformative education, we invite you to bring your talents to Augustana.

Employees at Augustana enjoy an excellent benefit package including medical, retirement, generous paid time off, tuition benefits for employees and their family members, and much more.

Special Collections Assistant

Non‑exempt Full‑time 12‑month schedule

Special Collections Librarian

Augustana’s Special Collections, located within the Thomas Tredway Library, collects, preserves, and provides access to the college’s rare books and unique archival materials. The Special Collections assistant—by participating in the provision of researcher services, management of collections, and mentoring of student employees—forms a key support to the department’s mission of providing active, engaged learning opportunities for students; facilitating original research by students, faculty, staff, and outside researchers;

and conducting community outreach on campus and in the Quad Cities area. The assistant’s job duties are carried out under the supervision of the Special Collections librarian, but with a high degree of accountability and the autonomy to work independently.

• Work collaboratively with the Special Collections librarian on departmental planning and projects.
• Provide reference and in‑depth research assistance to Augustana students, faculty members, administrative offices, alumni, and members of the public in person or by telephone, email, and/or traditional mail.
• Mentor and instruct student employees working on projects involving digitization, outreach programming, preservation, collection development, reference, and retrieval/shelving.
• Support the department’s teaching and learning efforts by preparing materials for classroom use and serving as a liaison for course‑related reference inquiries.
• Share responsibility for overseeing the reading room, including scheduling researcher appointments, ensuring policies and procedures are enforced, retrieving collection materials, maintaining statistics for annual reporting, assisting students and patrons with physical and electronic resources, and staffing the reading room desk in the absence of student employees.
• Manage the fulfillment of reproduction requests and route publication permission requests and donation inquiries to the Special Collections librarian.
• Coordinate shelving materials, shifting collections, cleaning collections, and shelf‑reading/inventorying collections as needed.
• Assist the Special Collections librarian with organizing, describing, and preserving collection materials of various types (such as photographs, vertical files, books, and/or manuscript materials).
• Support the development and stewardship of archival and rare book collections that reflect the diversity of campus and the local community.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Prior work experience in a library setting; prior work experience in an archives, rare books, or Special Collections environment is preferred, but not required.
• Familiarity with local/regional history or a willingness to cultivate such knowledge.
• Ability to understand and appreciate the mission of a residential liberal arts college and to work…