Could You Be Our New Wider Community Engagement Officer?

Could You Be Our New Wider Community Engagement Officer?

Charlene Chou - a woman with dark hair, wearing glasses and a pink rollneck jumper, smiling at the camera and standing before a blurred-out cityscape (New York)

We are looking for a cataloguer / metadata manager / educator with expertise in RDA to succeed Charlene Chou as our Wider Community Engagement Officer (WCEO). 

Officers serve for an initial two-year term, which can be extended for a further two years. The WCEO is an important member of the RSC Executive Committee, which meets once a month, and is responsible for engaging with and representing members of the RDA cataloguing community whose geographic locations are not sited in Regions with regional RDA committees (i.e. those outside Europe, North America, Oceania and South America and the Caribbean). 

Previous WCEOs have been based in the USA (Charlene Chou) and Australia (Ebe Kartus) and both have backgrounds working internationally. In her four years in post, Charlene Chou has developed links in Asia and has worked with the RDA Board member to increase awareness, speaking at conferences and working with translators and potential translators.

Applicants may be from one of the areas without Regional representation, or, like Charlene, may have experience working with cataloguers from one of these areas. It is an ideal opportunity to strengthen existing links and form new ones internationally. 

Current Executive Committee members are based in Canada, Germany, Hungary, the United Kingdom and the USA. Current Regional representatives are based in Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, and the USA. 

The WCEO is a voting member of the RSC and is expected to attend quarterly RSC meetings. These meetings are online (via Basecamp, MS Teams, and Zoom), with one in-person meeting most years, and accommodate committee members across all time zones. While this role is unpaid, the RDA Fund will cover travel, accommodation, and subsistence expenses for the in-person meeting.

Because of fluctuating workloads it is impossible to estimate the time commitment required for this position. Many weeks may require only a few hours; during the quarterly asynchronous meetings, more time is needed. The annual in-person meeting (3-5 days) requires a full-time commitment.

A full description is set out in the application form. To benefit from the meetings, you need to be fluent in English and have proficiency in RDA. Familiarity with the RDA Toolkit, expert knowledge of the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), and an understanding of how RDA is optimized for linked open data implementations is also required. The ability to read, write, and speak a language other than English is desirable. We ask a senior manager from your institution to sign off on the application form to confirm institutional support for this commitment. 

Charlene Chou is happy to be contacted for an informal conversation with interested applicants wishing to gain an idea of the role. You can email her are charlene@rdatoolkit.org 

If you have questions, you can contact Anne Welsh, RSC Secretary at RSCsecretary@rdatoolkit.org

To apply for this position, please submit the application form to Renate Behrens, RSC Chair at RSCchair@rdatoolkit.org by the close of business in your time zone on 30 July 2025.

 

Relevant documents: 

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Image: Charlene Chou, RSC Wider Community Engagement Officer, 2022-2025