AI-Native Metadata Librarian

Company: Third Iron, LLC
Position type: Full-time
Location: Remote, US-Based
 

About the Role

Do you enjoy digging into complex bibliographic data, tracking down inconsistencies, and finding better ways to organize information at scale? Are you the person your colleagues turn to when metadata does not behave as expected—or when a large dataset needs to be understood, cleaned, or transformed? Do you enjoy using Excel, SQL, and AI tools to answer questions and develop more efficient workflows? If so, we would love to talk with you about joining Third Iron as an AI-Native Metadata Librarian.

Since our remote-first company's founding in 2011, Third Iron has created the industry-leading software services BrowZine and LibKey. Our users include millions of students, faculty, doctors, researchers, and scientists affiliated with more than 2,000 libraries at universities, hospitals, corporations, and government departments across 36 countries—including organizations such as Stanford University, Mayo Clinic, NHS England, and the University of Hong Kong.

In this role, you will help improve and evolve the bibliographic data that powers Third Iron's systems and services. Working at the intersection of librarianship, cataloging, data analysis, and emerging technology, you will explore large-scale bibliographic databases, investigate complex metadata issues, and translate your findings into practical improvements for our products, processes, and users. You will use Excel, SQL, and AI-assisted tools while collaborating with technical and product teams to strengthen metadata quality, coverage, matching, and interoperability.
 

Responsibilities

• Analyze, clean, reconcile, and enrich large-scale bibliographic and holdings datasets.
• Investigate metadata quality, duplication, normalization, matching, and entity-resolution issues.
• Use Excel, SQL, AI tools, and other data-analysis methods to identify patterns, exceptions, and opportunities for improvement.
• Help design and refine metadata rules, mappings, validation processes, and automated workflows.
• Evaluate bibliographic data from publishers, aggregators, libraries, and other external sources.
• Support the evolution of Third Iron's metadata architecture, discovery capabilities, and knowledge-base systems.
• Develop repeatable methods for assessing metadata completeness, accuracy, consistency, and timeliness.
• Document data sources, standards, workflows, decisions, and quality-control procedures.
• Use AI-assisted approaches thoughtfully while validating results and maintaining appropriate standards for accuracy, privacy, and responsible use.

Required Qualifications

• At least 2 years of professional work experience in libraries, data science, metadata analysis or similar role.
• Master's degree in library and information science, a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Professional experience working with bibliographic metadata, library systems, discovery services, knowledge bases, or scholarly information.
• Strong working knowledge of Excel, including functions, filters, lookups, data transformation, and analysis of large datasets.
• High degree of comfort using AI tools for research, analysis, vibe coding mini apps, workflow development, and problem-solving.
• Familiarity with bibliographic identifiers and metadata standards such as DOI, ISSN, ISBN, MARC, KBART, Dublin Core, or related formats.
• Strong analytical skills and the persistence to investigate ambiguous or incomplete data.
• Ability to explain metadata and data-quality issues clearly to both technical and nontechnical colleagues.
• Excellent written communication, documentation, and remote-collaboration skills.
• Experience with APIs, JSON, XML, regular expressions, scripting, or data-transformation tools.
• Comfortable with reviewing metadata samples and designing tools to analyze data mechanically with AI.
• Ability to work independently, manage priorities, and contribute effectively within a distributed team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience writing SQL queries to explore, join, validate, and analyze data.
• Familiarity with metadata supplied by publishers, content aggregators, link resolvers, or library vendors.
• Knowledge of entity resolution, record matching, deduplication, authority control, or identifier reconciliation.
• Familiarity with scholarly communication infrastructure and data sources such as Crossref, PubMed, OpenAlex, ORCID, or library knowledge bases.
• Experience evaluating or developing AI-assisted metadata workflows.
• Experience collaborating with software engineers, product managers, or data teams.
• 1+ year of success working in a remote position.

What “AI-Native” Means at Third Iron

We are looking for someone who treats AI as a practical part of modern knowledge work. An AI-native candidate is eager to experiment, understands how to formulate and refine effective prompts, can use AI to accelerate analysis and technical work, and knows when human judgment and verification are essential. A strong candidate will have demonstrated direct experience applying AI to metadata or data-quality challenges.
 

What Success Looks Like

In this role, you will help Third Iron:

• Improve the accuracy, consistency, and coverage of its bibliographic data.
• Identify systemic metadata issues that cannot be solved through one-record-at-a-time cataloging.
• Develop scalable, repeatable approaches to data analysis and quality control.
• Make better use of automation and AI while preserving professional standards and human oversight.
• Turn complex bibliographic data into more reliable and useful experiences for libraries and their users.

Working at Third Iron

This is a remote position designed for someone who communicates proactively, works well independently, and enjoys collaborating across disciplines. You will have the opportunity to apply library expertise at scale and directly influence the data, systems, and services used by Third Iron's customers.  Third Iron is a small company of around 30 employees and our growth and success have been fueled by the passionate, curious people who work here. We value input and feedback while looking to minimize the interruptions of meetings, report writing, and internal emails.

Understanding that work is just part of your life, Third Iron also provides benefits including health, dental, long-term disability, paid time-off, home-office stipend, and more. It's why most employees who work at Third Iron spend many years of their careers here. You could, too!