Join the HathiTrust User Support Team

HathiTrust is seeking new members for the HathiTrust User Support team. This is a great opportunity for member library employees to get involved with the day-to-day work of HathiTrust and to learn more about HathiTrust’s general operations. HathiTrust User Support is an asynchronous user support team that communicates with users via a ticketing system. User Support members respond to problem reports and questions about services. HathiTrust does not provide in-depth reference services. Messages are submitted by member libraries, by students and faculty, and by public users from around the world.

Interested member library employees should apply using this form. Nominations are due by Friday, June 28, and training occurs in August. User Support members are expected to serve for up to four hours per two week period. This includes being on call one day every two weeks and following-up on messages as needed. Individuals must be currently employed at a HathiTrust member library for the entire duration of their time on the team.  Participation in HathiTrust User Support constitutes service to the profession.

This is a good opportunity for the following individuals:

• New library professionals looking to acquire experience in user services.

• Current experts in user or access services who wish to learn more about HathiTrust services.

• Digital conversion experts or catalogers interested in improving the quality of the HathiTrust collection.

We have vacancies on three subgroups. In the application form, please indicate the team of greatest interest.

• General Support team members do initial review of tickets on their scheduled day, answer basic questions, and refer tickets to other people as needed.

• Bibliographic Corrections team members review catalog error reports and work with contributing libraries to receive metadata corrections. Familiarity with MARC format is required.

• Digital Objects Quality Corrections team members review content quality problems and work with Google and contributing institutions to improve the quality of content scans.

Interested member library employees can direct any questions to Val Waldron, Chair of HathiTrust User Support, at vwaldron@hathitrust.org.