About the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.
Since its founding in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. We are committed to fostering a collaborative and respectful work environment with a staff as diverse as the audiences we engage. Our staff members are art lovers who are passionate about working toward a common goal: creating the most dynamic and inspiring art museum in the world.
At The Met, every staff member – from security officers to researchers to scientists and beyond – lives by our core values of respect, inclusivity, collaboration, excellence, and integrity.
Respect: Engage one another with collegiality, empathy, and kindness, always.
Inclusivity: Ensure that all are and feel welcome and valued.
Collaboration: Reach across boundaries to exchange ideas and work together toward our shared mission.
Excellence: Lead the cultural world in quality and expertise—and inspire curiosity and creativity.
Integrity: Hold ourselves to the highest moral standards, admit when we fall short, and then evolve.
GENERAL STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:
As the Associate Museum Librarian, you will administer and maintain the library’s integrated library systems, manage the library's hardware and software applications and play an active role in the library's extensive digital initiatives. You will contribute to library data analytics, visualization, and support information security. You will support and pilot emerging tools including LLM/AI-assisted workflows — for cataloging, metadata, and systems automation to streamline workflows of patron-facing services. You will be a core team member of several technical service teams and provide reference and research support to library patrons.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES:
Manages the maintenance and ongoing development of the library ILS (Innovative Interfaces Inc.’s Sierra); serves as primary contact with the vendor; coordinates with the library systems team for installing new releases, troubleshooting, and documentation.
Provides staff training on all upgrades and enhancements and their implications for improving access, workflows and processes; assesses the value of new software and features.
Manages and supports the operation of the ILS by maintaining configuration and access tables, creating documentation, maintaining passwords and authorizations, and by resolving problems relating to records, access, and functionality.
Works closely with vendors providing link resolvers, proxy authentication, authorities processing, cataloging services, digital repositories, and interlibrary loan systems; monitors, ensures optimal performance, and resolves technical support issues when appropriate.
Collaborates with library staff and vendors to identify, format, and coordinate the batch loading of vendor-supplied records into the online catalog.
Works as a key member of the Digitization Team to plan, implement, and support projects that advance the creation of digital collections.
Maintains the library’s externally hosted web server and serves as the library’s primary administrator of the Museum’s content management system (currently Sanity), including page migration, content updates, user research, and coordination with Digital.
Communicates regularly with library and museum staff on technology-related issues; works collaboratively with Digital and IS&T; provides regular updates on the status of ongoing projects, new equipment and services, and the resolution of technology issues.
Develops and maintains Python and shell scripts, SQL queries, and lightweight web applications designed to automate or partially automate processes related to extract, transform, and load library data, record loading, and reporting workflows.
In collaboration with Library team, contribute to blog library newsletter and outreach.
Collects and reports system-generated statistics and provides management and statistical reports on systems operations. Prepares and distributes local documentation as necessary; advises on the library’s information technology budgets and negotiates and arranges for the purchase of appropriate products and services.
Develops and maintains library data products and dashboards in PowerBI, including the Artist Indexes (IBA, IINAA, ILGBTQIA+, IHLAA, IAAPI), ILS performance dashboards, and digital collections usage reports; collaborates with library staff on data modeling and reconciliation (OpenRefine, SQL).
Administers the Library’s cloud infrastructure (AWS: S3, EC2, Lambda, IAM, SNS) for content delivery, shared access, and automation, in coordination with the Head of Systems and Museum IS&T.
Supports information-security practices for library systems, including periodic security reviews of departmental access, hardening of patron-facing forms and accounts, coordination with vendors on incidents (e.g., junk-account IP blocks.
Coordinates library staff onboarding and offboarding for systems access, including network accounts, ILS authorizations, mailbox setup, and shared drive permissions, in partnership with IS&T and HR.
Provides research support and scheduled reference service (including 3-4 weekend shifts per year required).
Coordinates the lifecycle of library workstations, peripherals, scanners, and printing equipment — including deployment, OS upgrades (e.g., Windows 11 rollout), replacement, and decommissioning — and ensures their ongoing effective use.
Other duties as assigned.
REQUIREMENTS & QUALIFICATIONS:
Master’s Degree in Library or Information Science, with a bachelor's degree or experience in Art History preferred.
Two or more years’ experience managing an ILS required, Innovative Interfaces preferred, in a medium or large research library.
5 Years of library experience required.
Coursework or demonstrated competency in computer science, programming, information security, or cloud architecture desirable.
Knowledge of HTML/CSS, XML/XSL, Microsoft Excel, content management systems, visualization tools (Power BI), web design, and graphic design.
Knowledge and experience working with content management systems required. CONTENTdm, TMS, and Sanity experience desirable.
Knowledge of relational database design principles required.
Demonstrated project management experience, training and supervisory skills required; experience with Agile/DevOps practices and tools such as Jira and Slack preferred.
Experience creating and manipulating library metadata, developing and administering web-based solutions using CSS, HTML, utilizing API Services, writing relational database queries using SQL, and scripting and/or using programing languages, particularly Python, JavaScript and Linux Shell, required.
Experience administering a Unix/Linux operating system using the command line interface required.
Experience with Zotero citation management software desirable.
Demonstrated aptitude for acquiring new skills relevant to library systems required.
Strong service orientation and awareness of end user needs as related to library systems and web platforms required.
Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills with a commitment to data-informed decision-making processes required.
Experience and commitment to public services including reference and instruction required.
Ability to work effectively, both collaboratively and independently, in a service-driven environment required.
Experience administering an enterprise content management preferred.
Experience building production data dashboards and reports in PowerBI (or comparable platform) preferred.
Familiarity with cloud-hosted services and basic AWS concepts (S3, IAM, EC2, Lambda) preferred.
Awareness of information-security fundamentals and willingness to participate in security reviews, system hardening, and end-user security training preferred.
The advertised pay scale reflects the good faith minimum and maximum salary range for this role. The advertised pay scale is not a promise of a particular wage for any specific employee. The specific compensation offered to a candidate may be dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s experience, education, special licensing or qualifications, and other factors.
Location Requirements
At time of employment, employees are expected to be located within commuting distance of the Museum. “Commuting distance” means that they are located in one of following states: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania (the “Tri-state and PA” areas), and be able to commute to and from the Museum in a single day.
Benefits Offerings
The Museum provides competitive compensation, and generous benefits and perks for all eligible employees. Note: Benefits Offering may differ based on Employee Status.
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Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
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403(b) basic retirement plan and optional matching retirement plan with an outstanding employer match
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Considerable paid time off, including annual leave, sick leave, and 13 Museum holidays
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Long-term disability coverage
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Flexible Spending Accounts & Health Savings Account (pre-tax income for eligible health care expenses)
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Commuter benefits (pre-tax income for parking or mass transit expenses)
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Free financial-planning services
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Financial assistance for relevant coursework, seminars, and training programs
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25% discount for staff in Museum shops
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A subsidized staff cafeteria
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Access to the Museums Council pass, which grants free admission to various museums and cultural institutions
We recognize that it is highly unlikely that someone meets 100% of the desired attributes for a role. If much of this job description describes you, then please apply for this role.
The Met is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, The Met will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed in this process, please contact [email protected].
The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides equal opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, mental or physical disability, pregnancy, alienage or citizenship status, marital status or domestic partner status, genetic information, genetic predisposition or carrier status, gender identity, HIV status, military status and any other category protected by law in all employment decisions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, compensation, training and apprenticeship, promotion, upgrading, demotion, downgrading, transfer, lay-off and termination, and all other terms and conditions of employment.
