Digital Asset Librarian - MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Job Description

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is seeking an experienced Digital Asset Management (DAM) Librarian to help implement, manage and maintain a newly acquired DAM system. The successful candidate, working as part of the DAM Core Project Team, will hold responsibilities for system configuration, metadata application, and refining workflows to upload, tag and internally share the Laboratory’s photography, videography, and visual design digital assets.

SUMMARY OF POSITION

The Digital Asset Management (DAM) Librarian is instrumental to the organization and delivery of the Laboratory’s photographic and video assets to both communications practitioners and R&D staff. Reporting to the Multimedia Services Manager within the Technical Communications Department, the Laboratory’s central creative services team, the DAM Librarian is responsible for the overall management of Laboratory digital assets from ingest through delivery. This includes following workflows to apply taxonomy, indexing, cataloging, metadata tagging, and other details that will make the assets searchable and easily accessible by all Laboratory staff.

As part of the DAM Core Project Team, the DAM Librarian will work closely with the Laboratory’s multimedia, Communications and Community Outreach, Library and Archives, and social media management teams to develop, implement and manage efficient workflows and best practices to identify assets and make them widely accessible as soon as feasibly possible. This role will also provide DAM user support, manage user access and provide training for various user roles. As the system will be a new tool for the organization, workflows will need to be adapted and documented and training materials must be updated.

Applicants must possess the ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with staff from across the organization. Successful candidates will be skilled communicators with an advanced understanding of digital asset management, taxonomy and metadata application. Candidates must have the ability to demonstrate flexibility in adapting to changing demands and the willingness to gather an ongoing understanding of Laboratory history, mission areas, and evolving initiatives. 

Primary Duties

System Oversight

• Establish and manage asset organization and folder structure for several different collections
• Grant and manage access rights to licensed users in accordance with established access levels and internal security parameters

Workflow Management

• Develop and manage workflows to upload and tag assets from Laboratory photographers and videographers, as well as those assets from Division and Group artists and field technicians
• Streamline process for delivering newly produced assets to internal customers
• Work with Archives team to transfer assets to Archives collection
• Follow internal lifecycle management guidelines

Metadata Application

• Support development of metadata structure
• Refine metadata schemes and align them to Laboratory standards to optimize searchability
• Proactively maintain metadata, ensure metadata is being applied properly by users, and audit metadata as needed
• Oversee application of keywords, controlled vocabulary, categories, and other identifying tags to assets to improve accessibility

User Support and Training

• Provide training to users of DAM
• Develop and maintain training documentation for all user roles
• Work with IT teams to troubleshoot access and usability issues including use of vendor approved plug-ins and 3rd party applications (Adobe CC)

Reporting and Analytics

• Produce reports and evaluate analytics related to:
• User access/frequency
• Search parameters
• Download rates
• Image popularity

QUALIFICATIONS

Education
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Library Information Science, Computer Science, Information Technology, or combination of relevant education, experience, and training

Knowledge and Skills

• Familiarity with creative asset workflows and systems (Adobe Creative Suite)
• Experience with metadata schema development, establishing naming conventions, cataloging and taxonomy for assets
• Strong interest in and practical experience with visual media resources 
• Knowledge of wide-ranging file formats and specifications including still images, video, social, 3D and web content
• Customer service oriented; process driven and detail focused

Experience

3-5 years of digital asset management experience with an enterprise-level DAM. Experience with NetX a plus.