Beyond the Job Title: Digital Repository Program Manager

A library tech job interview with Emily Porter

Posted on November 25, 2024 in Job Profiles

Authors:

Emily Porter
A librarian learning about the digital repository program manager tech job position

Core to LibTech Insights’s mission is demystifying the broad and dynamic field of tech librarianship in higher ed. In this series, we interview a librarian every month to learn a little more about their position. As library tech jobs proliferate, they sometimes come with unfamiliar, jargony, or intimidating titles. We want to go beyond the title and look at the responsibilities, skills, and joys that make up the job. We hope this series will increase your knowledge of library tech jobs and skills and offer you greater insight into the working lives of your colleagues.

For this installment, we spoke to Emily Porter at Emory University to learn more about her job as a Digital Repository Program Manager. Check out our archive of job profiles. 💫

What is your job title and responsibilities?

Job title: Digital Repository Program Manager

Responsibilities: I manage the functional requirements for a set of digital repository software applications (aka a “Digital Library”) and advocate for/coordinate the implementation of those requirements in collaboration with stakeholders and technology teams. Digital repositories are similar in some respects to complex content management systems or digital asset management systems, but also add in extra requirements for digital preservation, ensuring the data can be accessed for the long haul. This involves a lot of complex metadata and technical functionality. 

Can you describe your career trajectory leading up to this position?

I’ve had many twists and turns in my career, but the vast majority of it has been in support of libraries and/or IT in higher education institutions. Some interesting job titles have included: Database Cleanup Specialist, Electronic Projects Specialist, Electronics Projects Business Librarian, Senior Web Developer, 3D Artist, Metadata Analyst, and my current title of Digital Repository Program Manager. I am currently in a librarian/faculty-equivalent role at my institution, but I do not have a traditional MLS/MLIS degree. I have an MS in Information Design and Technology from Georgia Tech.

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What are the most important skills for your position and at what point in your career did you develop them?

  • Analytical/data analysis skills, including metadata analysis, spreadsheet skills. In general, being able to assess large sets of complex information and look for patterns, commonalities, and outliers

  • Web development and data transformation skills: markup languages, scripting, XSLT

  • Prototyping skills: knowing a variety of techniques for rapidly creating visual overviews of information and functionality 

  • Communication and facilitation skills: I’ve been fortunate to have some leadership training, but also have learned a lot by trial and error over the years

  • Project management skills: while I have little formal training, I have learned a lot by doing, reading, and working with talented Project Managers; Agile/Scrum methodologies are also an essential in my toolkit for trying to break down complex problems

Do you have any career advice from someone who didn’t go to library school for a MLS/MLIS degree but is interested in working in a library?

In my case, I started working in libraries at the age of 16, working part-time at my public library as a shelver and circulation assistant. I also worked as a library student assistant during college. My undergraduate degree was in Classics, which has limited job opportunities, so I knew at the time of my graduation that first, I loved working in libraries, and second, I had an awareness of what those job options could be. I was fortunate to land my first fulltime job working in a cataloging department. My cataloging experience has always been essential to my work!

In my late 20s, I was really interested in going to graduate school, but at the time, there weren’t many local MLS/MLIS-accredited options and they were all expensive. Online programs were just starting to emerge, but they were also really expensive. I’d already fallen in love with web technologies and had some web development experience along with an interest in design and user interfaces. I applied to an amazing and happily local, in-state program at Georgia Tech, which allowed me to draw upon all of my prior experience as well as take classes involving HCI, 3D modeling, augmented reality prototyping, as well as getting to do other rigorous coursework involving lots of reading, writing papers, and creating rapid prototypes to present to my classmates for critique each week. Many of my classmates went on to hold job titles such as Information Architect. I have presented to graduate students undertaking similar coursework on the digital preservation challenges related to my own digital thesis (digital preservation was not so well established in my grad school era), and I’m glad to be able to share that experience with others.

I think that people who have worked in libraries prior to having an MLS/MLIS have a great grounding in what the domain involves. It can be harder for people coming from other domains without that basic operational experience to adjust. Understanding the complexity of library services and library data can be challenging for technologists coming from other environments.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love this question because it keeps me motivated every day! My favorite part is that I get to be very involved daily in the implementation of complex solutions. So, I get to work with a team of very talented colleagues to frame a problem, debate (in a good way!) solutions to a problem, and figure out how to most quickly deliver on the most important aspects of that problem. Without getting into the origins of this quote, it really resonates with me: “A problem well stated is a problem half-solved” (Charles Kettering).

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