Scholarly Resource Acquisitions Specialist

Job Description

The Boston University Libraries are seeking a Scholarly Resource Acquisitions Specialist (SRAS) to support the functions related to the acquisition of scholarly resources that support the research, teaching, and learning at Boston University. The SRAS is the primary point of contact for scholarly resource vendor business communications, facilitating payments, and assisting with annual renewals. The SRAS works collaboratively with the Libraries Collections group, acting as the Business Services Unit's (BSU) representative on the Libraries Collections Council, attending regular budget meetings with Collections and BSU leadership, and preparing regular reporting to track spending, pricing irregularities, and budget availability. The SRAS works between the BSU and Collections group to help prepare and plan for each fiscal year and budget request cycle and develop workflows to manage the acquisitions lifecycle from licensing and purchase to receiving and processing.

Responsibilities

• Take a lead role in vendor communications, working to renew Libraries resources and directing various vendor business communications to the correct individual or group, ensuring timely follow up and seeing each inquiry through to resolution.
• Generates Libraries’ vendor payments, particularly those for the annual scholarly resources portfolio including, but not limited to, books, databases, journals, media, and membership payments within the University’s centralized payment portal.
• Verifies that vendor invoices secure appropriate internal approvals (based upon factors that include price and annual increase) are complete and accurate, and accompanied by the required sourcing and licensing paperwork prior to submission, ensuring timely and successful vendor payments.
• Places orders and generates payments for vendors that do not operate within the current University ordering system and maintains accurate records for purchases.
• Ensures Libraries' payments, record keeping, and reconciliation are timely and accurate.
• Develops and maintains data for BU Libraries’ current and historical payments and contracts, creating and updating order records in the Libraries Information System, and making recommendations for process improvements and implementing recommended adjustments.
• Works with the Director of Finance & Business Services, Chief Collections Strategist, and Head of Scholarly Resources to plan and budget for each fiscal year, identifying opportunities for savings, pricing irregularities and deployment of designated/restricted funding.
• Assists in preparation for the Libraries' annual budget request, helping to identify areas in the Libraries collection in need of investment and developing analyses and evidence to support requests.
• Analyzes Libraries Collections to answer questions that arise between Business Services Unit and Collections Unit, regularly reporting out recent acquisitions and renewals, year-over-year change in pricing and identifying unpaid invoices approaching their due date and taking steps to maintain access.

Required Skills

• Master’s degree in library science, business administration, or related fields
• 3–5 years of relevant experience in library acquisitions, library collections, or higher education finance

Boston University Libraries is a learning organization that supports the work of BU librarians, archivists, and information and subject specialists to seek and share knowledge, practices, and perspectives that advance library services to the university community. Embedded in numerous vibrant regional and national library and information specialist networks, the Boston University Libraries are active members within the Boston Library Consortium, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Coalition for Networked Information, and library staff at BU serve as engaged thought-leaders on a wide breadth of library management and service areas across diverse communities. 

Through the Libraries, BU also is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Northeast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL), HathiTrust, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), the OCLC Research Library Partnership, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS). 

Boston University, a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), is one of the leading private research and teaching institutions in the world, with two primary campuses in the heart of Boston and programs around the globe. Chartered in 1869, the University is home to more than 33,000 students from more than 130 countries, 375,000 living alumni, 10,000 faculty and staff, and 17 schools and colleges.

Learn More »