Director

Description:

A hub for scholarship and training, the Art Institute Research Center brings together the museum’s Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, the Art Institute of Chicago Archives, and the department of Academic Engagement and Research (AER) with the aim of caring for and fostering access to the wealth of research resources at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Research Center stewards resources that illuminate the histories and contexts of the museum’s vast art collection, as well as primary sources that are singular or rare works of paper-based art, archives, and historical documentation. The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries house more than 670,000 print titles addressing the global history of art, architecture and design, 100,000 auction catalogs, 37,000 artist files, and maintain 200 current print serial subscriptions and an extensive portfolio of subscription digital resources. The Libraries work in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago Archives and AER to support museum staff in all of their research endeavors, preserve the many collections under their purview, and maintain public hours in the museum’s Franke Reading Room to serve the art research community, faculty and students, artists and architects, and inquisitive scholars from around the world.

ABOUT THE POSITION

Reporting to the Executive Director of the Research Center, the Director of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries oversees operations and shapes strategy for library collections, resources and services. The Director leads departmental efforts around acquisition, organization, documentation, storage, and accessibility of library collections, establishing goals with attention to resource management and sustainability. The Director supervises two Associate Library Directors, in Technical and Access Services respectively, and an overall team of fifteen. They liaise with colleagues across the museum’s eleven curatorial departments to build relationships and set protocols where it concerns collection development, curatorial research aims, and the library’s role in exhibitions and publications. With the Executive Director, the Director collaborates on budget forecasting, the cultivation of transformative gifts and grants, staff equity and professional development, and strategic planning. The Library Director partners with other key positions in the Research Center to contribute to the collective management of the Franke Reading Room, the Center’s digital infrastructure, and the training of emerging professionals in the museum and among the museum’s university constituents. With the mission of research excellence through an equity lens, the Director attends to patterns of historical inequity in the composition, description or accessibility of library resources and brings departmental work in-line with the museum’s greater strategic efforts.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Administration and Management: With the Executive Director and the Director of the Archives, contributes to short- and long-term strategic planning for the Research Center, shaping cohesive goals and priorities where it concerns operations, audiences, accessibility, hiring, spatial evolutions, programming, acquisitions, exhibitions, and special initiatives. Plans and monitors budgets and restricted use funds. With staff, monitors fundamental on-site operations and physical spaces as needed. Oversees and prepares manuals and interpretive memoranda for procedures; collects statistics for reports and planning. Keeps contracts accurate and up-to-date. Manages hiring, supervision, training and evaluation for direct reports and collaborates with the associate library directors to support these processes on their teams. Mentors staff, contributes to training of new team members, interns and fellows.