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Department: VCU Libraries

Duties & Responsibilities:

The Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries invites applications and nominations for the position of Business and Public Affairs Librarian The Business and Public Affairs Collections Librarian will work collaboratively with the collections team, Academic Outreach colleagues, and University faculty to develop relevant research collections. The successful candidate will join a culturally and academically diverse faculty of the highest caliber.

Responsibilities
Reporting to the Head, Collection Analysis and Investment, the Business and Public Affairs Collections Librarian assumes a leadership role in developing, assessing, managing, and promoting the use of collections in all formats. Works closely with other members of the Collections Team with responsibilities for a $12.5 million acquisitions budget, to develop policy and procedures to sustain and foster excellent teaching and research collections, including those from smaller, lesser-known, and international presses with a variety of perspectives. Subject responsibilities include accounting, business administration, criminal justice, economics, finance, homeland security and emergency preparedness, information systems, management, marketing, political science, public administration, urban planning, and related disciplines.

The successful candidate will:

• Use appropriate qualitative and quantitative techniques to analyze and develop collections and to measure them against peer institutions.
• Work with other subject specialist librarians to cultivate strong relationships with the faculty to support their teaching and research missions and to keep them informed of collections appropriate to their work.
• Participate in opportunities in state and regional initiatives for developing electronic resources and digital collections.

The Business and Public Affairs Collections Librarian is expected to be active professionally and to contribute to developments in the field. Faculty with the VCU Libraries are evaluated, and promoted, on the basis of job performance, scholarship, and service.

Candidates need not meet the preferred qualifications to be fully considered. We value many individual and unique skills that would strengthen the VCU Libraries and our teams.

Salary: Salary commensurate with experience and internal salary equity; not less than $62,000 annually. This is a full-time, non-tenured faculty position. 12-month faculty benefits apply, including 24 vacation days annually and choice of retirement and annuity plans, as well as a professional development allowance. For more information about benefits, see the Faculty Benefits page. 

Interviews: Initial interviews will be conducted virtually. We anticipate inviting finalists to campus. 

About VCU Libraries

Libraries at Virginia Commonwealth University, including the James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus and the Health Sciences Library on the MCV Campus, employ over 60 professionals and 64 staff with annual expenditures exceeding $26 million. VCU also operates academic programs in Doha, Qatar, supported by a library there, and in various locations throughout the U.S. and the world. The VCU Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, Center for Research Libraries, Coalition for Networked Information, National Digital Stewardship Alliance, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a statewide networking consortium for shared access to electronic and print resources, as well as a Resource Library in the Network of the National Library of Medicine, among others.  The VCU Libraries uses the following packages for its system architecture: Alma, Primo, Rapido, Digital Commons, ArchivesSpace, and Omeka. The print serials collections of the VCU libraries represent unique holdings committed to regional print retention programs, such as ASERL. VCU has been a selective, regional depository library in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) since 1971, as well as a depository for government documents of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Our present collection is focused on electronic government documents.

For more information about the VCU Libraries, please visit our home page at https://www.library.vcu.edu/. Review of applications will begin February 13, 2026, and will continue until the position is filled. To apply, go to https://www.vcujobs.com/, complete the application and submit a cover letter, CV/resume, and the names, email addresses, addresses, and telephone numbers of three professional references.  

Questions? Please contact: Karen Cary at kcary@vcu.edu.

About Virginia Commonwealth University

We are the university for Virginia. We know that the unique backgrounds and life experiences of the VCU community are what drive the university forward. Together, we’re forging a future that is built by us. Here, artists and engineers, doctors and designers come together to reimagine the human experience and tackle the problems of tomorrow.   For information about the City of Richmond, see: https://www.visitrichmondva.com/

VCU enrolls more than 29,000 students in more than 200 academic programs across its urban campuses: the downtown Monroe Park and MCV campuses in Richmond; the Rice Rivers Center in Charles City, Virginia; satellite locations in Fairfax, Virginia, and Abingdon, Virginia; and a campus in Doha, Qatar, for the School of the Arts.  VCU is designated as a research university with very high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation, garnering more than $550 million in sponsored research from federal and other agencies in FY2025.  The National Science Foundation ranked VCU among the top 50 public research universities in the country, and we are one of only 84 public universities nationwide to be designated by the Carnegie Foundation as “Community Engaged” with “Very High Research Activity.”

VCU’s mission, is to serve as one national urban public research institution dedicated to the success and well-being of our students, patients, faculty, staff and community through:

• Real-world learning that furthers civic engagement, inquiry, discovery and innovation.
• Research that expands the boundaries of new knowledge and creative expression and promotes translational applications to improve the quality of human life.
• Interdisciplinary collaborations and community partnerships that advance innovation, enhance cultural and economic vitality, and solve society’s most complex challenges.
• Health sciences that preserve and restore health for all people, seek the cause and cure of diseases through groundbreaking research and educate those who serve humanity.

Virginia Commonwealth University is an equal opportunity employer  

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• ALA-accredited graduate degree or accredited graduate degree in another appropriate discipline.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
• Understanding of scholarly literature and an awareness of national trends in scholarly publishing.
• Knowledge of library information technology and applications
• Initiative and creativity, willingness to collaborate and to share information, and the ability to meet deadlines and manage competing priorities.
• Ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
• Strong service orientation.
• Demonstrated experience working in and fostering an environment of respect, professionalism, and civility with a population of faculty, staff, and students from various backgrounds and experiences, or a commitment to do so as a faculty member at VCU.

Preferred Qualifications

• Academic background in business with advanced degree in business, public affairs, legal studies, or related disciplines.
• Two or more years’ experience developing collections and selecting print and electronic resources in a research library.
• Experience using and evaluating electronic resources.

Salary Range: Commensurate with experience and internal salary equity; not less than $62,000 annually

Benefits: All full-time university staff are eligible for VCU’s robust benefits package that includes comprehensive health benefits, paid annual and holiday leave granted up front, generous tuition benefits, retirement planning and savings options, tax-deferred annuity and cash match programs, employee discounts, well-being resources, abundant opportunities for career development and advancement, and more.

Hours per Week: 40

Restricted Position: No

Rank: Open

Tenure: Ineligible

Months: 12