Director of Digital Collaborations & Partnerships

The Opportunity

The University of Oklahoma Libraries invites applications and nominations for the position of Director of Digital Collaborations & Partnerships. The Libraries seek a creative collaborative and highly strategic leader to serve in this inaugural role and to lead the launch and development of a unified Research Creativity & Digital Scholarship Hub and Studios initiative.

Reporting to the Associate Dean for Digital Strategies and Innovation the Director will play a central role in shaping the Libraries evolution as a campus-wide partner supporting computational research digital scholarship multimodal and media-rich creative work and interdisciplinary collaboration. This position is critical to advancing OUs Lead On Strategic Plan particularly the universitys goals to elevate research excellence foster innovation and provide world-class academic infrastructure.

This is a rare opportunity to build and lead a new enterprise-level initiative at a flagship public research university during a period of institutional transformation growth and investment in digital research capacity.

University of Oklahoma Libraries

The University of Oklahoma has recently established a central University Libraries system bringing together the Norman campus libraries the Health campus Library the Tulsa campus library and the Law Library. This unification positions the Libraries to deliver coordinated equitable and scalable research and creative activity support across disciplines and campuses.

Building on more than a decade of experience in digital scholarship data services digital humanities 3D technologies and emerging technologies the Libraries are launching a sustainable clearly scoped digital research creativity and scholarship support ecosystem. The Research Creativity & Digital Scholarship Hub and Studios will serve faculty students and research teams working on small- to medium-scale digital and computational projects complementing domain-specific and high-performance computing resources elsewhere at OU.

The Research Creativity & Digital Scholarship Hub and Studios

The initiative centers on a hub-and-spoke model with:

• A central Hub providing project intake consultation referral lifecycle planning training and community-building
• A coordinated network of specialized Studios supporting:
• Computational and AI-assisted research
• Digital humanities and text/data analysis
• Quantitative and qualitative methods
• Geospatial and spatial analysis
• Multimedia XR and digital storytelling
• 3D imaging modeling and fabrication

This ecosystem is designed to deliver stable high-impact services reduce reliance on single individuals formalize campus partnerships and build infrastructure that evolves alongside campus needs.

Strategic Priorities for the Research Creativity & Digital Scholarship Hub and Studios

• Develop partnerships with campus units (IT DISC A&H Forum VPRPs office academic departments) to provide coordinated services and facilitate referrals under an agreed upon alliance model (DAVIS model) with clear handoff mechanisms.
• Define and launch a faculty fellows program.
• Define and launch a Capstone support program.
• Develop methods for assessing the programs impact and collecting data on activities and outcomes.
• Participating in developing a funding strategy to recruit an increased number of graduate and undergraduate students with technical skills based on program assessment data.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Lead the phased implementation of the Research Creativity & Digital Scholarship Hub and Studios.
• Establish programmatic services capable of operating in distributed and evolving environments leveraging existing digital scholarship and data services.
• Contribute to the development of a coherent user-centered support framework across the Libraries.
• Build and sustain strategic partnerships with academic departments research centers campus units and faculty communities.
• Lead the coordination of services delivered through distributed studio spaces and partner facilities ensuring seamless user experience.
• Contribute to technology planning including strategic investments in equipment software and digital platforms.
• Lead the development and coordination of workshops consultation models and scalable programming that support research teaching and creative activity.
• Foster interdisciplinary research communities and networks across campus.

Supervisory & Team Leadership

• Hire supervise mentor and evaluate three to five employees cultivating a high-performing collaborative team.
• Participate in the design of staffing models training pathways and professional development strategies that scale.
• Promote an inclusive cross-functional culture across distributed program areas.

Analytics Assessment & Continuous Improvement

• Support data collection reporting and analysis related to service usage and system performance.
• Use assessment and analytics to inform decision-making and continuous program improvement.

Campus Engagement & Professional Activity

• Participate in Libraries- and university-wide committees and initiatives.
• Maintain professional engagement in areas related to digital scholarship research support and library innovation.
• Present and publish on work related to primary job responsibilities as appropriate.

Why OU Libraries

This role offers the opportunity to:

• Shape a new institutionally significant initiative from the ground up
• Work at the intersection of research technology creativity and collaboration
• Partner with campus leaders faculty and research units across disciplines
• Advance OUs reputation as a top-tier public research university
• Lead with both vision and pragmatism in a highly supportive environment

Qualifications

• Masters degree or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum of two years of related experience in academic libraries digital scholarship centers or research support environments.
• Demonstrated experience developing or managing programs that support research digital scholarship or creative activity.
• Strong understanding of digital research tools and methods (e.g. text and data mining data visualization digital publishing 3D or multimedia tools).
• Proven ability to build strategic collaborations across departments and institutional units.
• Supervisory or team-leadership experience.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills with the ability to engage users at varying levels of technical expertise.
• Demonstrated commitment to equity inclusion and respectful collaboration.

Preferred

• Experience launching or directing a digital scholarship center research hub or similar initiative.
• Knowledge of research lifecycles open scholarship data management or digital preservation.
• Graduate degree in library and information science digital humanities data science or a related field.

Application Process

The search committee will begin reviewing applications immediately and will continue to review materials on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. Application materials should include a letter of interest and curriculum vitae. For best consideration applicants are encouraged to submit materials by June 30th. The search will remain open until the position is filled.

Please send materials to:

Buffkin / Baker

Ms. Chelsie Whitelock Associate Partner

Required Experience:

Director