Assistant Professor, Digital Stewardship Librarian

Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a student-centered applied-research institution committed to providing its students with a transformative academic and social experience and to elevating its surrounding communities. Founded in 1906 WKU is the third largest public four-year institution in the Commonwealth of Kentucky with approximately 16293 students and nearly 2612 faculty and staff employees.

Western Kentucky University is committed to empowering its campus community. At the heart of our mission we seek to provide holistic education and employment experiences that prepare students faculty and staff to become effective scholars contributors and leaders in our ever-evolving communities.

Located 65 miles north of Nashville TN and just over 100 miles south of Louisville KY WKUs main campus is in Bowling Green KY - a city with approximately 70000 residents. Our population is ethnically diverse with more than 85 languages spoken in and around Bowling Green and people from 35 nationalities call our community home.

Western Kentucky University seeks to attract talented faculty and staff who are inspired individually to contribute to WKUs strategic plans and ongoing success. We offer comprehensive wellness and health benefits to employees and their families including domestic partners and other qualified dependents and take pride in providing a workplace culture that supports balancing the responsibilities of work and family life. Paid-time off for holidays vacation and sick leave and a tuition discount program for employees and dependents are also provided. Learn more about WKU and Bowling Green at Description:

Position Overview

Western Kentucky University (WKU) Libraries invites applications for a tenure-eligible faculty librarian to serve as the Digital Stewardship Librarian within the Department of Library Collections & Discovery. This position plays a critical role in advancing WKU Libraries stewardship of distinctive cultural heritage collections by ensuring their long-term preservation bridging traditional archiving while transforming them into accessible discoverable and usable resources.

Reporting to the Department Chair the Digital Stewardship Librarian provides leadership across the full lifecycle of collections including appraisal accessioning arrangement description preservation and access. Working collaboratively with colleagues across Collections & Discovery this position aligns people workflows and technologies to create a cohesive preservation-to-access pipeline for born-digital and digitized materials.

Principal Responsibilities. The following duties are customary for this position but additional responsibilities may be assigned based on institutional needs:

• Oversee and manage digital asset lifecycles including appraisal accessioning metadata creation digital transfer ingestion transfer to preservation repositories format migration for obsolete media and ongoing storage monitoring.
• Provide intellectual stewardship and curation for Special Collections manuscript holdings by setting processing priorities coordinating arrangement and description according to professional standards and directing staff workflows for manuscript processing and digitization.
• Advise the Department Chair on collection strategies including the transfer arrangement description and stewardship of manuscript materials ensuring that legal ethical and technical requirements are met.
• Apply professional archival and digital curation standards to develop guidelines policies and repeatable workflows that support sustainable stewardship and access.
• Recommend implement and assess digital forensics tools to support secure capture evaluation and when necessary redaction or access-restriction workflows.
• Evaluate and pilot emerging technologies and tools to improve digital preservation management and stewardship practices.
• Create and edit finding aids and other digital surrogates in accordance with archival standards and best practices.
• Bridge preservation and access by ensuring that stewardship workflows and technologies result in materials that are discoverable usable and responsibly accessible to users.
• In collaboration with the Senior Cataloging Librarian and the Library Systems Administrator manage access to digitized and born-digital collections through the librarys discovery platforms.
• Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to support the visibility promotion and use of digital collections.
• Coordinate digital initiatives by aligning departmental priorities workflows and expertise to deliver an integrated and sustainable preservation-to-access pipeline.
• Provide training documentation and communication through reports presentations and hands-on workshops for library faculty and staff on digital stewardship born-digital processing and access workflows.
• Provide reference assistance to patrons.
• Engage in teaching research/creative activity and university professional and public service in accordance with departmental criteria for faculty rank and promotion.
• Assist with special projects including but not limited to inventory collection maintenance and related departmental initiatives.

• Masters degree in Library and Information Science from an ALA-accredited program.
• Demonstrated experience working in archives or special collections with digital projects
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and in a highly collaborative setting document and solve problems in a timely manner and prioritize multiple projects.
• Demonstrated proficiency with digital preservation and collection management platforms such as AtoM Digital Commons DSpace and Alma Digital. Experience operating digitization equipment including audio capture hardware (e.g. Sound Blaster) book and flatbed scanners and cameras used in digital preservation workflows.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills with an ability to maintain effective relationships with faculty staff students administrators and other key stakeholders

Faculty rank and salary are commensurate with experience and qualifications and are governed by the tenure and promotion guidelines of the Department of Library Collections & Discovery. This is a 10-month tenure-eligible faculty appointment with opportunities for promotion in rank.

Kentucky state law requires all public institutions of postsecondary education to conduct pre-employment criminal background checks to determine suitability for employment.

Western Kentucky University (WKU) is committed to a policy and practice of providing equal employment and educational opportunities to all accordance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Revised 1992 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 no form of discrimination or harassment will be tolerated at WKU on the basis of race color ethnicity national origin creed religion political belief sex sexual orientation gender identity/expression marital status age uniformed services veteran status genetic information pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions or physical or mental disability in admission to career and technical education programs and/or activities or employment practices.

Persons with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations to participate in the application and/or selection process should notify the office of Institutional Equity. To request an accommodation report a complaint or ask questions regarding WKUs Discrimination and Harassment Policy (#0.2040) please contact Ms. Ena Demir Executive Director/Title IX Coordinator via email at or by phone at . Ms. Demir is also responsible for coordinating the Universitys response to complaints related to sex and gender harassment. Additional information regarding Title IX is accessible via WKUs website.

Information concerning educational programs offered by WKU are provided at: information related to job postings please email .

The following items must be submitted through this electronic talent management system by September 25 2026 although expressions of interest may be considered until the position is filled:

• Letter of Intent
• Curriculum Vita
• Unofficial Transcripts

Names and contact information of three reference providers will be collected during the application process. Reference letters will be requested by the Search Committee through an online process at a later date.

You will receive email confirmation once you have successfully completed the application process.