Job Board

The LPC maintains a list of jobs that incorporate library publishing roles. To be included in this list, the position must be located administratively in a library, or report directly to a library-based supervisor. The primary function(s) of the position must directly engage in the creation, dissemination, and/or curation of scholarly, creative, and/or educational works. Administrative positions that do not directly engage in these functions may be included if they include supervisory responsibility primarily for employees who are performing these functions.

March 4, 2019

Digital Publishing Specialist

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
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Position Available:  This position is available as soon as possible.  This is a 100% time, permanent, twelve month appointment Academic Professional position in the University Library.

Responsibilities: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks an innovative, proactive, collaborative, and motivated professional excited about advancing experimental and open forms of publication in the position of Digital Publishing Specialist. Reporting to the Head of Scholarly Communications and Publishing, the Digital Publishing Specialist will provide the Library’s Scholarly Communications and Publishing Unit with outreach, project management, and production workflow support as part of the Library’s effort to offer high quality, open access publishing services to the Urbana-Champaign campus and beyond. The Specialist will initially also participate in the Andrew W. Mellon-funded “Publishing Without Walls” initiative (https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/256174).

This position administers the day-to-day coordination and completion of digital publishing projects, including tasks such as document modelling and text-structure cleanup processes. The incumbent will interact with other members of the Scholarly Communication and Publishing team, Library IT, and the Scholarly Communication and Repository Services team, and will, in collaboration with the unit head and the research programmer, troubleshoot and streamline digital publishing production workflows. She or he will also assist in developing new publishing projects, and exercise independent professional judgement in working with authors, editors, and other stakeholders in the development of particular publications and broader publishing operations.The incumbent leads instruction on digital publishing skills and technologies with partners in the Library and across campus.

As a member of the Scholarly Communication and Publishing Unit, the Digital Publishing Specialist works with other units in the library to achieve goals related to scholarly communication and digital scholarship broadly, including the Scholarly Commons (http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/) and the Research Data Service within the Office of Research.

The University Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign values diversity of thought, perspective, experience and people, and is actively committed to a culture of inclusion and respect. We are dedicated to the practices of social justice, diversity, and equality, and strive to overcome historical and divisive biases in our society and embrace diverse points of view as assets to the fabric of our community. All positions will be called on to contribute to building this environment in the Library and throughout the campus community, and we encourage candidates to apply who share these values.

 Specific responsibilities include:

Outreach and Education:

  • Provide expertise and leadership in the areas of digital publishing, open access, open educational resources (OER), and copyright;
  • Consult authors, editors, and other relevant stakeholders on on the definition of scope and objectives for digital publishing projects and connect needs to content, structure, and features of online publications;
  • Collaborate with colleagues in Scholarly Communication and Publishing, other Library units, and publishing partners on activities related to publishing research, outreach, and engagement;
  • Develop and conduct workshops and educational initiatives on the publication process and digital publishing tools for scholars and authors including faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students;
  • Collaborate on efforts to promote open educational resource (OER) adoption and publishing.

Editorial Processes and Policies:

  • Collaborate with colleagues in Scholarly Communication and Publishing to develop documentation, policies, and to scope publishing services;
  • Establish and manage internal communications for the launch of new digital publications;
  • Ensure the technical feasibility of digital publications and convert and prepare materials for online publication, including creation of metadata; formatting of text documents; proofreading for obvious structural, grammatical, or stylistic errors; and running scripts to convert from PDF, InDesign, or Microsoft Word format (among others);
  • Edit and create structured documents and web sites for publication using HTML, XML, and CSS templates;
  • Create and document procedures for preparing and loading content into digital publishing platforms;
  • Collaborate on increasing accessibility of digital publishing objects;
  • Design and create promotional material for publications.

Research:

  • Evaluate feasibility of emerging formats and workflows for digital publishing to guide integration into the Library’s evolving scholarly publishing toolkit;
  • In collaboration with the Head of Scholarly Communications and Publishing, perform periodic environmental scans and evaluation of digital publishing activities and platforms;
  • Research and develop policies and best practices related to institution-specific publishing efforts;
  • Stay up-to-date on activities related to copyright law and licensing issues; open publication; open educational resources; and emerging areas in digital publishing.

Academic Professional employees are encouraged to use “investigation time” to pursue areas of interest, not directly in support of an immediate program need, in accordance with the University Library’s policy on Investigation Time for Academic Professional Employees <http://www.library.illinois.edu/administration/human/resources/investigationtime.html>. Some investigations originating in this manner may evolve into regular work assignments or production activities.

Required Qualifications:

  • Master’s degree in a related humanities or social sciences field such as English, communication, media studies, information sciences, or digital humanities
  • Understanding of web technologies including HTML, CSS, Javascript, and APIs, including web accessibility issues and best practices
  • Strong computer literacy skills in desktop word processing and database applications
  • Experience managing projects, prioritizing among multiple projects, and meeting deadlines
  • Experience and comfort with troubleshooting digital technologies
  • Demonstration of strong organizational skills and attention to detail
  • Familiarity with content management systems (e.g., WordPress, Drupal, etc.)
  • Strong written and oral communication skills and an ability to explain technical information to a non-technical audience
  • Demonstrated ability to work both independently as well as collaboratively in teams and with users
  • Demonstrated ability to work effectively with a diverse community

Desired Qualifications:

  • Ability to identify and research emerging areas in digital publishing e.g., copyright, licensing, best practices, new publishing software, and other publishing related topics
  • Understanding of Creative Commons licensing and related copyright issues
  • Experience with creating and maintaining documentation
  • Experience with markup languages, document modelling, and/or establishing data conversion and cleanup workflows
  • Experience with proof reading and copy editing
  • Familiarity with InDesign or other typesetting software
  • Familiarity with the publication process or digital libraries

Environment: The University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign is one of the preeminent research libraries in the world. With more than 14 million volumes and significant digital resources, it ranks second in size among academic research libraries in the United States and first among public university libraries in the world. As the intellectual heart of the campus, the Library is committed to maintaining the strongest possible collections and services and engaging in research and development activities in pursuit of the University’s mission of teaching, scholarship, and public service. The Library currently employs approximately 80 faculty and 300 academic professionals, staff, and graduate assistants. For more information, see: http://www.library.illinois.edu/.

The scope of the Scholarly Communication and Publishing unit of the library includes digital publishing, repository services (including the library’s institutional repository, IDEALS), copyright, researcher profiles, scholarly communication, and digital humanities. Librarians in the unit collaborate closely with other units in the library’s Office of Research, including the Research Data Service and Scholarly Commons, as well as with a network of subject specialists, technical services experts, and special collections librarians and archivists on projects of mutual interest. It is a partner on the Mellon-funded Publishing Without Walls grant to understand digital publishing needs of humanists and implement publishing solutions that fill those needs. The Scholarly Communication and Publishing Unit synthesizes a wide range of expertise in both traditional and non-traditional areas of library practice associated with every aspect of the scholarly communication cycle, including consultations in the preparation of scholarly articles and other outputs, consultations related to intellectual property and copyright, digital archiving of intermediate-stage scholarly work, compliance with Open Access mandates and policies, promotion of open educational resources, and establishment and maintenance of new publishing platforms and publication workflow processes for direct Open Access publishing of final-stage scholarship.

Salary and Rank:  Salary commensurate with credentials and experience.

Terms of Appointment: Twelve-month appointment; 24 work days’ vacation per year; 11 paid holidays; 12 days annual sick leave (cumulative up to a maximum of 240 days) plus an additional 13 days (non-cumulative) per year if necessary; health insurance, requiring a small co-payment, is provided to employees (coverage for dependents may be purchased); participation in the State Universities Retirement System is required upon appointment (8% of member’s salary is withheld and is tax exempt until retirement); newly hired university employees are covered by the Medicare portion of Social Security, and are subject to its deduction.

Campus and Community: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a comprehensive and major public land-grant university (Doctoral/Research University-Extensive) that is ranked among the best in the world. Chartered in 1867, it provides undergraduate and graduate education in more than 150 fields of study, conducts theoretical and applied research, and provides public service to the state and the nation. It employs 3,000 faculty members who serve 31,000 undergraduates and 12,000 graduate and professional students; approximately 25% of faculty receives campus-wide recognition each year for excellence in teaching. More information about the campus is available at www.illinois.edu.

The University is located in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, which have a combined population of 100,000 and are situated about 140 miles south of Chicago, 120 miles west of Indianapolis, and 170 northeast of St. Louis. The University and its surrounding communities offer a cultural and recreational environment ideally suited to the work of a major research institution. For more information about the community, visit: http://illinois.edu/about/community/community.html orhttp://www.ccchamber.org/

To Apply:  To ensure full consideration, please complete your candidate profile at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload a letter of interest, resume, and contact information including email addresses for three professional references. Applications not submitted through this website will not be considered. For questions, please call: 217-333-8169.

Deadline: In order to ensure full consideration we urge candidates to submit application materials on or before March 25, 2019.

The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer.

The University of Illinois is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. For more information, visit http://go.illinois.edu/EEO. To learn more about the University’s commitment to diversity, please visit http://www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu.