Metadata Operations Specialist at Columbia University Libraries

METRO | 599; New York (NY); On-site; USD 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A Metropolitan Archive Service in New York seeks an entry-level Metadata Operations Specialist for a two-year temporary position. This role involves operational support in cataloging and metadata management, ensuring accurate and compliant metadata for digital assets, and collaborating on preservation processes. Ideal candidates have a BA or equivalent, experience in an academic environment, and knowledge of metadata standards.

Qualifications

• 0-2 years’ experience or relevant coursework.
• Relevant work experience in an academic environment.
• In-depth knowledge of metadata formats, cataloging, and content standards.

Responsibilities

• Process metadata descriptions for ingest into library systems.
• Conduct quality assurance and metadata remediation.
• Evaluate metadata workflows and recommend solutions.

Skills

Working knowledge of metadata tools and systems

Effective verbal and written communication skills

Excellent organizational and project management skills

Education

BA or equivalent

Tools

OpenRefine

MARCEdit

Job description

This is an entry level, two-year temporary position.

Reporting to the Department Head, the Metadata Operations Specialist provides operational support in cataloging and metadata management within the Collections Acquisition & Metadata Services department for the grant-funded Anticaste Archives Project. This role is responsible for creating, processing, and maintaining metadata for digital objects (e.g., documents, images, and videos) to ensure accuracy, consistency, and compliance with metadata standards. The specialist helps ensure that metadata is up-to-date, structured, and accessible, facilitating both human and machine-readable discovery of digital assets.

Responsibilities

• Processes metadata descriptions received from project partners for ingest into library systems.
• These descriptions will be in a variety of formats and in several languages and scripts, using a number of tools, such as OpenRefine and MARCEdit.
• Exercise independent judgmentin standardizing metadata, enhancing records, and ensuring compliance with international standards (e.g.,MARC 21, RDA, MODS, LCSH, FAST).
• Conducts quality assurance and metadata remediation, including validation against controlled vocabularies such as the Library of Congress Name Authority File.
• Evaluates metadata and workflows on an ongoing basis and communicates any issues or barriers to project stakeholders, recommending automation solutions where applicable.
• Contributes to best practices for metadata creation, transformation, and management.
• Collaborates with the Digital Preservation Librarianto supportfile validation, post-preservation processing, and metadata consistency across preservation systems.
• Contributes new creator names as needed to the Library of Congress Name Authority file as well as to emerging identity management databases, e.g., ISNI and Wikidata.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• BA or equivalent and 0-2 years’ experience or relevant coursework.
• Relevant work experience in an academic environment.
• Working knowledge of metadata tools and systems.
• In depth knowledge of metadata formats, cataloging and content standards (RDA, MODS, MARC 21, LCSH, FAST).
• Demonstrated aptitude for complex, analytical and detailed work.

Preferred Qualifications

• Coursework in an accredited library school program.
• Familiarity with South Asian scripts and languages, especially Marathi, Hindi, and/or Tamil.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills.
• Ability to work across administrative units.