Research Librarian Overview

There are certain skills that many research 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 communication skills, initiative and interpersonal skills.

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a research librarian, we found that a lot of resumes listed 22.2% of research librarians included library services, while 15.8% of resumes included research projects, and 7.2% of resumes included collection development. 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 research librarian job title. But what industry to start with? Most research librarians actually find jobs in the professional and education industries.

If you're interested in becoming a research librarian, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 26.9% of research librarians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 54.5% of research librarians have master's degrees. Even though most research 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 research librarian. When we researched the most common majors for a research librarian, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on research librarian resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.

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