Metadata Specialist

LAC Federal•Beltsville, MD

3d•Onsite

About The Position

LAC Federal is seeking an experienced Metadata Specialist to provide metadata quality and remediation services in support of a federal research library in Beltsville, Maryland. The position will support the quality, consistency, completeness, and machine readability of metadata used in a major scientific and agricultural research discovery environment. The Metadata Specialist will perform controlled metadata cleanup and remediation in Alma; validate bibliographic, administrative, and research metadata; support metadata quality assurance; and execute approved metadata changes within an established governance and change-control framework. The position combines professional library metadata expertise with data-quality analysis, structured documentation, and basic scripting and automation skills. The work supports reliable discovery, data integration, public access, geospatial applications, analytical tools, and AI-ready metadata infrastructure.

Requirements

Demonstrated professional experience working with library metadata standards and schemas, including MARC, RDA, and Dublin Core.
Experience or demonstrated familiarity with metadata remediation workflows in Ex Libris Alma.
Knowledge of controlled vocabularies, authority control practices, and metadata quality-assurance methods.
Demonstrated ability to work within structured governance and change-control procedures, including executing approved changes, following defined workflows, and maintaining required documentation.
Experience with basic scripting or automation tools, including Python, to support data review, reporting, validation, or quality-control activities.
Strong written and verbal communication skills and demonstrated ability to create accurate technical, procedural, and audit-supporting documentation.
Demonstrated ability to accurately review, normalize, validate, and correct complex bibliographic or research metadata.
Ability to obtain and maintain the Government suitability, PIV/LincPass, system-access, and facility-access credentials required for performance.
Ability to work effectively in a highly controlled federal information environment and comply with applicable Government security, privacy, and records-handling requirements.
Ability to perform full-time work supporting the federal customer during the required period of performance.

Nice To Haves

ALA-accredited MLS or MLIS.
Two or more years of professional experience in cataloging, metadata management, metadata remediation, or metadata quality assurance.
Advanced hands-on experience with Ex Libris Alma, particularly bibliographic record maintenance, batch remediation, normalization, or metadata-management workflows.
Experience with Python, OpenRefine, MARCEdit, APIs, SQL, regular expressions, or comparable tools for metadata analysis, transformation, validation, or QA.
Experience with scientific, agricultural, technical, scholarly, or research-publication metadata.
Experience validating and reconciling DOI, ORCID, ISSN, ISBN, funder, affiliation, dataset, and other scholarly communications metadata.
Knowledge of Library of Congress authority practices, subject vocabularies, name authority control, and entity reconciliation.
Experience working with metadata exposed through APIs, repositories, discovery platforms, or data pipelines.
Experience supporting metadata governance, change-control boards, controlled release processes, sandbox/testing environments, or formal configuration-management procedures.
Previous experience supporting a Federal Government library, national library, research institution, scientific information center, or comparable large-scale metadata environment.

Responsibilities

Perform systematic metadata cleanup, correction, standardization, and remediation in Ex Libris Alma in accordance with approved task instructions and established metadata standards.
Execute approved metadata change requests within established change-control procedures, including applicable sandbox testing, freeze periods, change classifications, verification, and review requirements.
Review and improve the accuracy, consistency, completeness, and machine readability of bibliographic, research, and administrative metadata supporting public discovery and downstream data services.
Validate metadata fields including author and affiliation information, abstracts, subjects and keywords, funding information, publication information, geographic descriptors, datasets, availability information, and other required elements.
Verify identifiers such as DOIs, ISSNs, ISBNs, Handles, and ORCID identifiers against appropriate authoritative sources and ensure consistency with source bibliographic information.
Apply professional knowledge of MARC, RDA, Dublin Core, controlled vocabularies, authority control, and metadata quality-assurance practices when reviewing and remediating records.
Use Python and other appropriate scripting or automation techniques to support metadata review, analysis, validation, reporting, and quality-control activities while adhering to established change-management controls.
Conduct required pre- and post-update validation and maintain accurate documentation demonstrating what was changed, tested, verified, and completed.
Identify metadata anomalies, ambiguities, dependencies, and potential quality issues and appropriately escalate them through established Government review and change-control channels rather than making unauthorized production changes.
Maintain detailed, auditable records of metadata remediation activities and prepare task-completion logs, workflow notes procedural updates, implementation documentation, and QA/validation results.
Prepare monthly progress reports summarizing completed tasks, records updated, and issues requiring follow-up, as well as required annual summaries.
Collaborate effectively with librarians, metadata specialists, technical personnel, project stakeholders, and Government representatives while complying with applicable privacy, security, accessibility, and information-governance requirements.