Over the past few years, the scope and breadth of Ithaka S+R’s work has grown substantially. The Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums program has seen increases in cohort projects that explore critical issues facing libraries; grant funded initiatives focused on digital preservation, higher education in prison, student success, and museum leadership; national surveys of faculty, community college administrators, and archivists; and sponsored work on topics including the health of the research enterprise and diversifying collections. 

To manage this growth and to meet our aspirations for future impact, we need to staff up. We currently have three open positions and expect to post more in the near future:

  • Associate Director (for Organizations and Talent)
  • Senior Analyst (for Surveys)
  • Senior Analyst (with an emphasis on Higher Education in Prisons). 

To provide more context on these roles, starting this year, we are organizing our program into three teams: 

  • Users and Markets 
  • Organizations and Talent 
  • Collections and Curation 

Users and Markets. We have an extensive track record of conducting research into the attitudes, behaviors, and needs of users across our communities. This portfolio has grown to encompass faculty members and students, the latter defined broadly to include underserved learning communities such as incarcerated students and students with basic needs for housing and food security. Danielle Cooper, who was promoted to associate director last fall, leads this program area, and other team members include Darnell Epps, Dylan Ruediger, Jane Radecki, Kurtis Tanaka, Melissa Blankstein, and Nicole Betancourt. Kurtis Tanaka, newly named the program manager for justice initiatives, is taking primary responsibility for the higher education in prison portfolio and has posted a job opening for a senior analyst to further support this work. We will also soon be hiring a colleague to conduct market analysis. 

Organizations and Talent. Memory organizations such as libraries and museums have been grappling with strategic and organizational change as they work to improve their alignment with demographic, economic, and technological imperatives. We have studied leaders and worked to help them address strategy, organizational structure, and cross-institutional collaboration. In addition, we have helped organizations and sectors address talent management, culture and climate, and community engagement. Much of our work in this program area has had a very strong DEI lens for quite some time, including our current pilot on anti-racism talent management audit services, as well as projects on art museum employee and trustee diversity. We have also contributed to business planning and revenue models for memory organizations. We are in the process of seeking strong leadership for this program area (the job description is available here). Team members include Deirdre Harkins, Kara Bledsoe, Liam Sweeney, and Makala Skinner, as well as a senior analyst opening we are currently filling. 

Collections and Curation. We have been examining digitization and its impacts on collections management for well over a decade, and we have also had real impact in the areas of discovery, preservation, and access. Today, there are also vital considerations around description, representation, and repatriation of collections, areas where we would like to make a greater contribution. In the first half of 2022, Oya Rieger and I will be developing a research agenda for this program area, and depending on the directions that this takes, we will consider bringing on full-time leadership and staffing for this third program area. 

I hope you can help spread the word about our current openings, and I invite you to bookmark our Careers page where we will post additional positions in the near future.