Job: Metadata Management Associate at Open Book Collective | OBC Information Hub

Key details

• Salary: Between £30,000 and £40,000 per annum, negotiable depending on experience.

• Contract: Full time and fixed term.

• Contract start date: As soon as possible.

• Contract end date: 30th April 2026.

• Application deadline: We assess applications on a rolling basis (please see below), so please apply as soon as you are able. We expect to complete the recruitment process by the end of July 11, 2025.

• Location: Fully remote, work from home. Flexibility as to country of residence.

• Application process: 2 page cover letter & CV, by email. Further information below.

Who we are

Open Book Collective (OBC) is a registered charity that delivers sustainable new funding streams to book publishers and open publishing service providers, all deeply commited to open access.

University libraries can use OBC to browse and subscribe to Supporter Programmes offered by our members. In return, supporters receive direct benefits, public recognition, as well as helping collectively fund a fairer future for open access books.

We also help publishers move away from having to rely on Book Processing Charges to fund open access books. We see these kinds of charges as unfair, preventing many authors from accessing the benefits of open access. They are also financially unsustainable, placing an ever increasing economic strain on university budgets.

About the role

Under the remit of the Copim Open Book Futures project, funded by Research England and Arcadia, we are working to accelerate OBC’s outreach to libraries. A part of this work involves providing libraries and library consortia with metadata about the books of our publisher members.

To help us to facilitate this, we are looking for a motivated Metadata Management Associate to join the team until the end of the project.

In this role, you will assist the OBC team to improve the overall quality of the metadata used by OBC publisher members. This will involve creating new and rich metadata records for our members’ books, especially their backlist titles. This will in some cases involve liaising directly with OBC publisher members about their works and existing metadata management procedures/workflows.

Alongside creating and entering accurate metadata about the texts themselves, you will also research and create metadata regarding book authors’ institutional affiliations at the point of publication. This enables OBC to demonstrate to university libraries and consortia how our members’ works relate to their staff / priorities. All metadata will be managed via the online platform created by our partner, and OBC member, Thoth Open Metadata.

You will also assist the OBC team with wider work related to outreach to libraries and consortia, such as generating customised exports from the Thoth system, presenting book metadata in easily legible tables, as well as assisting with general administrative duties.

The role provides the chance to become involved with a new organisation at the cutting edge of the Diamond Open Access movement. This will provide opportunities to build your networks in this area, as well as to learn about the latest developments in longform open access scholarly publishing.

This is a fully remote / working-from-home position, with an understanding that the role holder will be available for at least five hours per day between 9am and 5pm (UK time) to attend team meetings etc.

Responsibilities

• Metadata management

  • Working with OBC publisher members to create and manage enriched book- and chapter-level metadata

  • Analysing and potentially correcting existing metadata records, in dialogue with publishers

  • Exporting metadata records and presenting key elements in easily legible formats to support OBC outreach

• Publisher liason

  • Liasing directly with OBC publisher members to develop customised workflows for efficient metadata management

  • Engaging OBC publisher members

• Additional

  • Supporting the OBC team as needed with general adminsitrative duties and contributing to discussions on OBC’s approach to metadata management

Key skills and experience

We are looking for a candidate with …

• good communication skills to interact effectively with the OBC team and publisher contacts, and an open mind and interest i