Library staff members assist visitors in finding information and maintaining a calm environment. They are responsible for processing new books, keeping the library clean, and ensuring journals are up to date. A high school diploma is required, and a library science degree is a plus.
A library staff member – sometimes called a technician, assessor or library assistant – is the person responsible for helping visitors find the information or services they need. The employee can work for a school, community or even a private library. Generally, library staff do not work alone – a team of library staff, managed by the head librarian, is usually responsible for helping visitors find what they are looking for in the library.
Libraries are often divided into sections to make materials easily accessible to patrons. These areas typically include reference books, periodicals, fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books. Normally, a library staff member is expected to be familiar with all of these departments and their subsections. In very large libraries, a staff member may specialize in a specific area of reading materials.
Helping people find the information they are looking for is often a library staff’s primary job. He or she is usually seated at the entrance to the library, greeting and offering assistance to patrons as they arrive. If a visitor is not familiar with how a library works, the library staff will usually provide an overview of the system. The clerk then usually takes the visitor to a card catalog or computer to show the visitor how to look up the information they want.
The reference section is usually an area where a library worker helps the most people. Since most books in this section cannot be taken off the premises, unlike most books in the regular library, the library worker is usually responsible for keeping track of reference selections and ensuring that they are promptly returned to the desk after use.
Another important job for a library worker is to process new books in the system. Typically, he or she needs to know how to catalog and encode the books on the card or computer system. This requires entering a variety of data points, including the publisher, author, number of pages, genre and reprint history, as well as the classification codes provided by the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems. After the incoming books are processed, it may be necessary for the employee to store them properly with similar books and in alphabetical order by title or author, depending on the section of the library.
In addition to assisting visitors and checking in books, a library staff member is expected to help keep the library clean and tidy, as well as maintain a calm, subdued environment conducive to reading and study. He or she may also be required to ensure that journals are up to date by removing outdated material for distribution elsewhere. In some libraries, the staff member may also be required to track and retrieve overdue books.
Typically, a high school diploma or equivalent is required for this job. A library science degree is generally considered a plus for applicants for library staff positions. Good organizational skills and computer literacy are generally desirable attributes for aspiring library staff.
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