Perma.cc Legal Digital Scholarship Project Manager

Job Description

The Library Innovation Lab (LIL) seeks an information professional to serve as the Perma.cc Legal Digital Scholarship Project Manager. Located at the Harvard Law Library, LIL is a fun and collaborative lab with a broad mission focused on re-envisioning how knowledge is created, preserved, and accessed. Please visit our website at https://lil.law.harvard.edu/ to get a sense of our current projects and activities.

This one-year position will focus on building and launching a system for preserving and sharing legal scholarship using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) within the Perma.cc service.

Perma.cc has provided web citation preservation to the legal community for over a decade. The adoption of DOI-standard elsewhere in scholarly publishing-is increasingly critical in law, with Bluebook requirements on the horizon. The project will design a plan for incorporating DOI into the Perma.cc ecosystem, coordinate the planning and rollout of DOI minting, and document sustainable operational models for the future.

As the Perma.cc Legal Digital Scholarship Project Manager, your responsibilities will include:

Analysis, Requirements Gathering & Standards Tracking

• Review current practices at HLSL and Perma.cc and identify requirements for DOI assignment to legal scholarship and web materials.
• Track developments in legal citation standards related to DOI and ensure project alignment.

Evaluation & System/Workflow Design

• Evaluate options for DOI minting (such as CrossRef membership or other registration methods) and make recommendations.
• Develop and document criteria and workflows for DOI assignment, in line with existing standards in other fields.

Stakeholder Engagement & Outreach

• Lead outreach to law journals, faculty, clinics, and other stakeholders to establish procedures for DOI registration.
• Serve as primary liaison to DOI registration agencies to arrange necessary permissions and clarify technical needs.

Technical Collaboration & Implementation

• Collaborate with technical teams at Perma.cc and HLSL to design and pilot the integration of DOI processes into existing systems.

Documentation, Policy Development & Reporting

• Prepare clear documentation and policy recommendations for the ongoing management of DOIs at HLSL and Perma.cc.
• Prepare interim and final reports summarizing actions taken, challenges, and recommendations for future service management.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of five years' post-secondary education or relevant work experience

Additional Qualifications and Skills

We are looking for people who have:

• Experience with scholarly communication, metadata, or digital preservation.
• Familiarity with DOI and other persistent identifier systems.
• Strong organizational, project management, and communication skills.
• Experience in law libraries, legal publishing, or digital repository management.