Knowledge Management Officer (Law Library)
Organizational Context
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is an intergovernmental organization based in Kingston, Jamaica, established under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) supports the ISA's mandate to organize and control activities in the international seabed area. This Knowledge Management Officer role is situated within OLA, focusing on preserving and making accessible the organization's legal memory and supporting its legal work.
Job Purpose
The Knowledge Management Officer (Law Library) serves as the primary custodian of the International Seabed Authority's legal memory within the Office of Legal Affairs. This role bridges traditional librarianship with modern digital knowledge management, ensuring that crucial legal instruments, jurisprudence, internal opinions, and institutional records are preserved, organized, and readily accessible to legal officers and Member States. The position is designed to enhance the Secretariat’s legal functions, including regulatory development, compliance, and governance, by providing advanced research support and maintaining the integrity of the institutional legal archive. The officer will manage the law library, develop legal taxonomies, standardize content management, and oversee digital and audio archival records, ensuring compliance with ISA/UN standards.
Responsibilities
Manage the specialized law library, including acquisition, organization, and digital archiving of legal materials and access to databases. Develop and maintain legal taxonomies, indexing systems, and common formats/metadata schemes for legal documentation to standardize content capture, storage, search, and retrieval. Prepare work plans and budgets for the library and archive, coordinating the creation, management, and preservation of digital and audio archival records in line with ISA/UN standards. Coordinate the preservation of historical legal documents. Develop and implement a knowledge management plan for the legal department, including knowledge audits. Prepare and implement Standard Operating Procedures for managing internal electronic records and legal outputs, and oversee records transfer and retention schedules. Act as the lead for legal team research, retrieving and synthesizing international instruments, legislation, case law, and doctrine. Conduct investigations to verify institutional precedents and mandates. Provide research memoranda and legal compilations to support drafting of reports and policy notes. Maintain searchable collections of international jurisprudence and treaty texts. Provide specialized training to staff on legal research methods and digital platforms. Liaise with other international law libraries and UN agencies for resource sharing and technology updates. Coordinate with the assistant librarian to delineate legal and scientific materials.
Work Experience
A minimum of five years of progressive professional experience in a library, law firm, or legal office environment is required, with responsibilities in knowledge management, information management, digital records management, and complex legal research. Proven experience in legal research, law library management, or a government/international organization's legal office is essential. Experience with metadata, taxonomies, digital library systems, and content management standards is desirable.
Skills
Professionalism, Teamwork, Technological Awareness.