The Varieties of Librarians

There are a wide variety of professional careers in the areas of librarianship in the digital age. In terms of library types, they are mainly public librarian, academic librarian, special librarian and school librarian.

Public librarians work in a public library or community library, providing information to the community residents. To be a good public librarian, excellent customer service skills and training in public services are necessary.

Acadmic librarians work in a university library or college library, mainly serving faculty, student and staff of its parent institute. Since they deal with scholarly information at most of time, many academic librarians have another master's degree on one or two academic subjects. In many institutes, they have academic status or faculty status.

Special librarians work in a special library (i.e., a library funded by a commercial firm, private association, government agency, nonprofit organization, or special interest group), meeting the information needs of its employees, members, or staff.

School Librarians, also known as teacher-librarians, work in library in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves the information needs of its students and the curriculum needs of its teachers and staff. Most school librarians also possess a bachelor's degree of educaiton.

In terms of their functions, they could be reference librarians, systems librarians, cataloging librarians, instruction librarians, acquisitions librarians.

A reference librarian works in public services, answering questions posed by library patrons at a reference desk, by telephone, or via e-mail.

An acquisitions librarian is responsible for selecting, ordering, and receiving new materials and for maintaining accurate records of such transactions.

An instruction librarian teaches library users how to locate the information they need quickly and effectively.

A systems librarian works with the development and maintenance of the hardware and software systems used in a library or library system, especially the online catalog and access to any bibliographic databases and other electronic resources.

A cataloging librarian is responsible for preparing bibliographic records to represent the items acquired by a library, including bibliographic description, subject analysis, and classification.

You may choose relevant courses in your library school according to your career goal.

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