Director of Teaching and Learning Services

Position Description

The UCLA Library seeks a highly collaborative leader to serve as unit head for the recently-created Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) department. The director will oversee the department’s programs and services, which include information literacy instruction, core research assistance services, instructional design and assessment, and student engagement. TLS provides direction and leadership for these areas and collaborates with other Library departments for implementation and alignment, including topics such as information literacy related to artificial intelligence, mis/disinformation, and sustainable, scalable, and inclusive pedagogy. This is an opportunity to shape the future of UCLA Library’s teaching and learning programs and lead a talented, creative team whose collective expertise and commitment to service foster strong partnerships across campus.

Position Duties

Reporting to the AUL for Teaching, Learning, and Research. The incumbent is responsible for the following:

Specific duties and responsibilities include:

• Develop and lead service strategy for Teaching and Learning Services, including sustainable and scalable information literacy and research help services with focus on: coordination of research help services, foundational and advanced information literacy; student engagement programs, instructional design, and assessment.
• Collaborate with Library colleagues to develop and align teaching and learning services and support with departments outside of the TLR division, including Special Collections, International and Area Studies, and the Film and Television Archive.
• Develop and maintain strategic relationships with campus partners and entities in support of Library and departmental goals and priorities.
• Oversee unit allocated budgets in accordance with UCLA Library Fund Manager expectations.
• Oversee recruitment, coaching, mentorship, performance management, and retention of ~18 librarians and staff, both as a direct and indirect supervisor. Serve as Review Initiator (RI) for librarians and support other supervisors and team leads in their responsibilities. Ensure librarian and staff responsibilities and goals are in alignment with unit, division, and library-wide goals and priorities.
• Collaborate with colleagues across the Library to inform space-related upgrades and modifications to support services and programming priorities.
• Collaborate with colleagues across the Library to ensure collections support evolving teaching and research needs.
• Work with AUL to ensure departmental staffing and service models support Library goals and complement Research Services and Access Services foci and service models.
• Serve as an active member of the Library’s Management Council.
• Work closely with Library Development to identify and steward donors, collections, and endowed gift funds.

The successful candidate will be committed to promoting and enhancing diversity through engagement with and promotion of the UCLA True Bruin values and the UCLA Principles of Community; able to collaborate across departments and divisions; foster an inclusive and team-oriented work environment; adaptable to change; and able to lead teams through change.

General Information

Professional librarians at UCLA are academic appointees. This is a non-represented position. Within the UC System, most librarians are represented by an exclusive bargaining agent, University Council – American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT). As academic appointees, librarians are entitled to appropriate professional leave, two days per month of vacation leave, one day per month of sick leave, and all other benefits granted to non-faculty academic personnel. UC has an excellent retirement system and sponsors a variety of group health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans in addition to other benefits. Relocation assistance may be provided.

Appointees to the librarian series at UC shall have professional backgrounds that demonstrate a high degree of creativity, teamwork, and flexibility. Such background will normally include a professional degree from an ALA-accredited library and information science graduate program. In addition to professional competence and quality of service within the library in the primary job, advancement in the librarian series requires professional involvement and contributions outside of the library, and/or university and community service, and/or scholarly activities. Candidates must show evidence or promise of such contributions.

Description of Unit

Part of the Teaching, Learning, and Research division, Teaching and Learning Services supports UCLA students, faculty, instructors, staff, and external researchers in attaining the research and critical information literacy skills needed for educational success and lifelong learning across multiple modalities, and connecting users with library resources, collections, and services. The department provides leadership and assessment for the Library’s in-person and online research services, instructional design, and information literacy across the curriculum (including but not limited to specialized subject and format methodologies, primary source, media, data, and AI literacies). TLS collaborates closely with colleagues from across the Library and campus partners to engage the UCLA community with the library’s spaces, services, and collections from orientation through graduation.

Description of Institution and Library

As one of the world’s great public research universities, UCLA integrates education, research, and public service so that each enriches and extends the others. From its beautiful neighborhood campus in a uniquely diverse and vibrant city on the Pacific Rim, teaching and research extend beyond the classroom, office, and lab through active engagement with communities, organizations, projects, and partnerships throughout the region and around the world.

UCLA’s diverse community of scholars encompasses nearly 30,000 undergraduates pursuing 125 majors, 13,000 graduate students in fifty‑nine research programs, and 4,000 faculty members including Nobel Laureates; Rhodes Scholars; MacArthur Fellows; winners of the Fields Medal, National Medal of Science, Pritzker Prize, and Pulitzer Prize; and recipients of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Golden Globes. UCLA ranks tenth in the Times of London Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, twelfth in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and fifth in the U.S. by Washington Monthly. The National Research Council ranks forty of its graduate and doctoral research programs among its top ten.

To enable these accomplished students, faculty, and staff to create, disseminate, and apply knowledge for the benefit of global society, the UCLA Library is re-envisioning how it is acquired, synthesized, and shared across academic audiences and with the public. It was among the first academic libraries to develop subject-specialist librarians and to launch a program to enhance students’ research skills. Its Special Collections pioneered the acquisition by public institutions of rare and unique books, children’s literature, pulp and detective fiction, works by or about women and minorities, screenplays, architectural plans, and Los Angeles-related materials and today leads the way in collecting archival resources in digital format such as emails and manuscripts. It has launched innovative data management services and an affordable course materials initiative that have served as models for other libraries.

The Library serves UCLA students, faculty, and staff whenever and wherever they need its resources and expertise. Reconfigured, high-tech spaces and services in its ten campus libraries enable users and librarians to explore and work with print and digital materials collaboratively or individually, pursue new lines of inquiry, and develop new pedagogical approaches as well as novel forms of scholarship. More than 3.5 million people visit annually, while an additional 3.4 million visitors enter online through its virtual front doors.

Whether on campus or online, the Library forms the intellectual heart of UCLA, a hub for cutting-edge discovery, scholarship, and instruction.