Manager, Academic Content Licensing & Acquisition

Job Title: Manager, Academic Content Licensing & Acquisition Location-Type: Remote (EST/CST Preferred) Work Hours: 37.5 hours/week, flexible start between 7:30-9:30 AM EST Start Date Is: ASAP Duration: 6-Month Contract-to-Hire Compensation Range: $50/hr - $55/hr W2 (Conversion: $100K-$127K) Benefits: Eligible for Health, Dental, Vision, 401KJob Description:Our client is seeking a Manager, Academic Content Licensing & Acquisition to oversee the identification, evaluation, licensing, and acquisition of scholarly journals and academic books for a leading research database. This individual will manage a team of seven employees responsible for content acquisition, evaluation, and processing while maintaining relationships with academic publishers and negotiating large-scale content licensing agreements.Key Responsibilities:Lead the acquisition and evaluation of scholarly journals and academic books for inclusion in research databases.Manage seven direct reports responsible for journal and book acquisition, electronic content feeds, content retrieval, and database accessioning.Develop and maintain relationships with third-party academic publishers, scholarly societies, and content providers.Negotiate large-scale licensing agreements with major academic publishers, including agreements covering hundreds of journals or books.Oversee electronic content feeds and collaborate with technical teams to ensure efficient content delivery and metadata processing.Establish content evaluation standards and collection development policies to ensure appropriate journal and book coverage.Develop and manage annual departmental budgets, resources, and operational priorities.Oversee team performance, improve acquisition workflows, and collaborate with internal leadership and external publishing partners.Requirements:5-10+ years of experience in scholarly publishing, academic content licensing, acquisition, or related operations.3-5+ years of direct people management experience, ideally within scholarly publishing or academic content operations.Hands-on experience acquiring and licensing scholarly journals, academic books, or research content from external publishers.Demonstrated experience negotiating complex, large-scale licensing agreements with major third-party academic publishers.Strong understanding of scholarly publishing, content acquisition processes, and academic journal/book evaluation.Knowledge of copyright, content permissions, and Creative Commons licensing.Experience developing and managing annual budgets.Strong leadership, negotiation, communication, and external relationship management skills.Bachelor's degree required.Preferred Qualifications:Experience working for an academic research database, scholarly content aggregator, or indexing organization such as Clarivate, ProQuest, EBSCO, JSTOR, or similar.Experience negotiating content agreements with major publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley, or Springer Nature.Background evaluating journal quality, including identifying predatory journals or managing publication inclusion decisions.Degree in Psychology, Library Science, Information Science, or a related discipline.Familiarity with electronic content feeds, scholarly metadata, and database content processing.