A national information and heritage institution is seeking five highly skilled ISAP Librarians & Editors to manage edit and promote a leading national indexing database of South African periodical literature.

The role involves overseeing editorial standards indexing quality metadata control and the processing of scholarly and general-interest periodical content for inclusion in the ISAP database. Successful candidates will contribute to editorial workflows system enhancements and the strategic development of the programme.

Key Responsibilities

1. Editorial & Indexing Management

• Oversee the indexing of articles from South African scientific journals specialist publications and general periodicals.
  
• Define enforce and maintain indexing standards including controlled vocabularies classification systems keyword assignment and abstracting.
  
• Review edit and validate index records to ensure accuracy consistency and adherence to metadata standards (e.g. authorship titles subjects abstracts).
  
• Manage end-to-end editorial workflows: receipt of periodicals material selection indexing quality assurance and ingestion into the ISAP database.
  
• Liaise with technical/IT teams for metadata transfer to external systems (e.g. Sabinet Online) and ensure efficient export mechanisms.
  

2. Collection & Content Development

• Collaborate with Legal Deposit and Periodicals units to secure eligible South African titles for indexing.
  
• Monitor emerging journals new titles and special series relevant to South African scholarship.
  
• Support collection development decisions to increase the coverage and representation of South African academic and cultural content.
  
• Advocate for proactive inclusion of new publications aligned with the ISAP mandate.
  

3. Quality Assurance & Reporting

• Monitor indexing quality completeness accuracy and turnaround times.
  
• Implement review mechanisms and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives.
  
• Maintain detailed statistics and performance metrics (e.g. number of indexed records subject coverage processing timelines).
  
• Prepare monthly and quarterly progress reports for management.
  
• Stay updated with international best practices (e.g. MARC21 RDA linked data metadata interoperability).
  

4. Metadata Standards & Schema Development

• Evaluate and recommend metadata schemas controlled vocabularies classification approaches and indexing frameworks.
  
• Develop or adapt local metadata application profiles and internal best-practice guidelines to enhance consistency.
  

Technical & Professional Requirements

Essential Skills & Knowledge

• Strong editorial indexing and metadata skills with exceptional attention to detail.
  
• Knowledge of library classification systems controlled vocabularies and metadata standards (e.g. MARC21 RDA).
  
• Familiarity with tools and software used for digital indexing metadata creation and workflow tracking.
  
• Ability to work with digital periodicals online publications and modern indexing workflows.
  
• Strong organisational and project-management skills; able to manage multiple tasks and tight deadlines.
  
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to liaise with staff management and external partners.
  
• Analytical ability to compile performance statistics and write clear informative reports.
  
• Leadership or team-coaching experienceability to train guide and motivate indexing staff or freelancers.
  

Preferred Qualifications

• A degree in Library and Information Science Information Management Knowledge Organisation Digital Curation or related fields.
  
• Experience in bibliographic indexing metadata management academic publishing or library cataloguing.
  
• Understanding of South African scholarly publishing and research content is an advantage.