Library Manager, Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Position: Library Manager, Elisabeth

C. Miller Library

Location: Seattle, WA

Reports to: Director of Curation, Horticulture and Collections

Paygrade: 30

FLSA Status: Exempt

Workplace Status: Full-Time 40hrs

Salary: $84,000 - $92,000

Gardens are an essential part of the human experience. We visit gardens to find peace and healing, to be with friends and family and to better understand and connect with the natural world. Plants shape how we live, what we notice, and how we care for one another.

Right now, we are building something extraordinary in Seattle: an exceptional organization that brings together the unique strengths of the Arboretum Foundation and the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. We are joining forces to become a destination garden, exemplifying leadership in scientific research, public engagement, and inclusive access. Our vision is to be a home for discovery, a force for sustainability, and a gateway to wonder.

In every visit and through every season, we’ll help people of all ages meaningfully connect with the living world of plants and how they shape our lives and our shared future. The 230-acre Washington Park Arboretum includes a vibrant collection of more than 40,000 plants from around the world with trails to explore, educational programs for youth to adults, and respite for all.

The Miller Library is the library for Seattle Botanic Gardens (SBG) which manages the Center for Urban Horticulture, the Washington Park Arboretum, and the programs of the Seattle Japanese Garden. As part of Seattle Botanic Gardens, the Miller Library values and honors diverse experiences and perspectives, strives to create a welcoming and respectful learning environment, and promotes access, fairness, and opportunity for all.

This library serves multiple roles: providing reference services, programs, and collections to the general gardening public and community horticulture professionals, while supporting the staff and faculty affiliated with SBG, including faculty and students at educational institutions, especially at the University of Washington.

The library has 19,000 visitors each year and represents the Seattle Botanic Gardens' educational mission by providing reference services to a wide audience of researchers, staff, students, and faculty, as well as the gardening public. Library staff provide one-on-one reference assistance, publish bibliographic subject guides and resource recommendations, and provide course specific bibliographies and manage course reserves. Library staff research nearly 2,000 submitted questions annually and tracks the cited answers in a database available to all by key word searches from the library’s website.

The library hosts monthly art exhibits and provides tours, both in-person and virtually, of the collections and facilities to a wide variety of student and community groups. Staff present monthly, virtual story time readings for children and their families.

The Miller Library houses a collection of over 16,000 books, 400 periodical titles (both active subscriptions and historical), and other resources including nursery and seed catalogs, and archives of regional horticultural history. The library is comprehensive for Pacific Northwest authors with additional concentrations on horticultural history and biographies, botanical illustration, garden memoirs and diaries, and plants of special interest to regional gardeners.

Annual circulation of the mostly lending book collection totals 4,500. Additionally, there are 800 rare and valuable books dating back to 1629 with an estimated total value of over $1,500,000.

The Miller Library is independent of University of Washington Libraries, but…