How To Become An Assistant Archivist: What It Is and Career Path

What is an assistant archivist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an assistant archivist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $23.35 an hour? That's $48,569 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 4,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAssistant ArchivistUS Average

Salary

3.8

Avg. Salary $48,569

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.2

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.21%

Asian 4.94%

Black or African American 5.15%

Hispanic or Latino 7.09%

Unknown 4.18%

White 77.43%

Gender

female 55.00%

male 45.00%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

4.2

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

10.0

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an assistant archivist

Explore assistant archivist education requirements

Most common assistant archivist degrees

Bachelor's

74.6 %

Master's

14.9 %

Associate

6.0 %

Start to develop specific assistant archivist skills

Skills	Percentages
Archival Collections	14.99%
Reference Services	12.21%
Historical Materials	11.10%
Digital Assets	8.69%
Cataloging	8.46%

Complete relevant assistant archivist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New assistant archivists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an assistant archivist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real assistant archivist resumes.

Research assistant archivist duties and responsibilities

Perform physical processing and cataloging of rare books.
Create EAD and DACS compliant finding aids for entire archival collection.
Transpose institutional history into DACS compliant CMS.
Make MARC records and finding aids accessible online and locally, and make sure potential users are aware of their availability

Prepare your assistant archivist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your assistant archivist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an assistant archivist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable assistant archivist resume templates

Build a professional assistant archivist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your assistant archivist resume.