How To Become A Medical Library Assistant: What It Is and Career Path

What is a medical library assistant and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a medical library assistant. For example, did you know that they make an average of $13.1 an hour? That's $27,247 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -4% and produce -6,400 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreMedical Library AssistantUS Average

Salary

2.1

Avg. Salary $27,247

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate -4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.76%

Asian 6.11%

Black or African American 10.81%

Hispanic or Latino 13.85%

Unknown 4.70%

White 63.78%

Gender

female 72.37%

male 27.63%

Age - 49

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 - 49

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

3.7

Complexity level is basic

7 - challenging

Work life balance

10.0

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a medical library assistant

Explore medical library assistant education requirements

Most common medical library assistant degrees

Bachelor's

56.0 %

Associate

22.0 %

Master's

10.0 %

Start to develop specific medical library assistant skills

Skills	Percentages
Medical Library	25.98%
Interlibrary Loan	20.77%
Literature Searches	17.87%
Data Entry	9.10%
Docline	8.99%

Complete relevant medical library assistant training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New medical library assistants 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 a medical library assistant based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real medical library assistant resumes.

Research medical library assistant duties and responsibilities

Conduct literature searches for patron using Internet resources including pubm, Medline, NLM, InfoTrac, and Docline.
Receive, verify, and enter article and book requests using computerize systems (Docline and JerseyCat).
Help troubleshoot technology relate issues.
Assess and discard non-fiction collections as assigned.

Prepare your medical library assistant resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your medical library assistant 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 a medical library assistant resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable medical library assistant resume templates

Build a professional medical library assistant 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 medical library assistant resume.