I know a lot of folks (staff and mem­bers included) have been scream­ing from the rooftops for this, wait­ing impa­tiently. But today it finally hap­pened. We’re try­ing to turn the cruise ship — come join me on the ledo deck!

Senior Usabil­ity Officer

“Respon­si­bil­i­ties: The Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion (ALA), a large, information-based pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion seeks a Senior Usabil­ity Offi­cer (SUO). This posi­tion in its key role will sup­port 65,000 mem­bers and non-member in the orga­ni­za­tions’ ini­tia­tive to recast its grow­ing Web­site with user-centered web design prin­ci­ples. The poten­tial can­di­date will have exten­sive first hand expe­ri­ence design­ing and run­ning usabil­ity tests, acces­si­bil­ity reviews/audits, and deter­min­ing web­site trends. In addi­tion, must have expe­ri­ence with other method­olo­gies such as expert walk­throughs, defin­ing stake­holder require­ments, task analy­sis, wire­fram­ing, pro­to­typ­ing and card sort­ing. Excel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and peo­ple skills with the abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate with non-technical indi­vid­u­als are a must in this highly vis­i­ble posi­tion. The SUO must be flex­i­ble and able to incor­po­rate user-centered design prin­ci­ples to online inter­faces while remain­ing respon­sive and open to the diverse and shift­ing needs of a com­plex orga­ni­za­tion. The abil­ity to work in a team envi­ron­ment and between two uni­verses of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy and Librar­i­an­ship is essen­tial in order to main­tain an outcome-oriented, global vision.

Require­ments: Master’s degree in Human-Computer Inter­ac­tion (HCI) or a related field with a min­i­mum of five years expe­ri­ence in design­ing and con­duct­ing usabil­ity tests and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to effect changes. Must have knowl­edge of web site design, web-based usabil­ity stan­dards, web-based acces­si­bil­ity stan­dards and industry-acknowledged best prac­tices. This indi­vid­ual must be able to work in a fast-paced envi­ron­ment and man­age mul­ti­ple projects simul­ta­ne­ously. Salary is nego­tiable from $75,000. ALA has an excel­lent medical/dental pack­age, vaca­tion and retire­ment annu­ity. Clos­ing Date: Review of appli­ca­tions will begin Decem­ber 1, 2007 and con­tinue until the posi­tion is filled. For con­sid­er­a­tion send a let­ter of appli­ca­tion and resume to the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion, Human Resources Depart­ment, SUO/IT, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611; fax: 312.280‑5270, email: cvivian@ala.org.

Salary Range: Nego­tiable from $75,000
Exempt/Non-Exempt: Exempt”

From Scott Nichol­son:

“I’m a pro­fes­sor at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity, and we just got 5 IMLS grants for librar­i­ans inter­ested in becom­ing LIS fac­ulty mem­bers. Why is this rel­e­vant in LibGam­ing? Because if you come to Syra­cuse, you’d be wel­come to work with me on research about gam­ing in libraries! Of course, you could also work with many other folks, as we’ve got a lot of inter­est­ing things going on.”

There’s much more in the full press release — iSchool Secures Grant to Fund Five Future Library Pro­fes­sors.