Medical Librarian Overview

There are certain skills that many medical librarians have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed reading skills, communication skills and interpersonal skills.

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a medical librarian, we found that a lot of resumes listed 13.3% of medical librarians included library materials, while 11.0% of resumes included information resources, and 9.4% of resumes included patient care. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.

When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the medical librarian job title. But what industry to start with? Most medical librarians actually find jobs in the health care and education industries.

If you're interested in becoming a medical librarian, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 21.7% of medical librarians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 55.1% of medical librarians have master's degrees. Even though most medical librarians have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a medical librarian. When we researched the most common majors for a medical librarian, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on medical librarian resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.

You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a medical librarian. In fact, many medical librarian jobs require experience in a role such as reference librarian. Meanwhile, many medical librarians also have previous career experience in roles such as librarian or library assistant.