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Academic librarians maintain high-quality collections, determine cataloging systems, order new books, and provide research assistance. They may also oversee specialized libraries and archives, ensuring proper handling and maintenance of valuable collections. Advanced degrees and specialized training are often required.
An academic librarian maintains an academic library, a library maintained in an educational institution for the use of students and staff. Academic libraries have some unique needs that require specialized training and qualifications. People who work as academic librarians are usually graduates of accredited library science programs and may hold advanced degrees, especially if they work in specialized libraries.
As with other aspects of librarianship, being an academic librarian is much more than keeping books. Indeed, most academic librarians are not involved in the literal archiving process, which is handled by smaller library staff such as work studies students. The librarian is responsible for maintaining the library’s collections, which must be of the highest quality to compete with other academic libraries.
An academic librarian determines which cataloging system should be used and how it should be implemented, or maintains an existing catalog system, as well as ordering new books, monitoring the condition of books in the collection, selling and disposing of books that are no longer needed, dealing with special requests and providing research assistance. Academic librarians may also hire staff, handle library staff and user credentials, and work with library technology such as computers.
Many educational institutions have multiple libraries that pertain to different areas of scholarship, such as the medical library, music library, humanities library, and so on. The library system may be overseen by a chief librarian who oversees librarians with special skills who are responsible for these special collections on a day-to-day basis. Part of the chief librarian’s responsibilities may include making budgetary and policy decisions about the library system as a whole, balancing the needs of individual branches.
In some academic libraries, the library includes archives and special collections. Access to these items must be carefully controlled as they are valuable and sometimes irreplaceable. Usually, a specially trained academic librarian is tasked with focusing on the handling of these collections, making sure that they are only accessed by authorized users, that people follow precautions when handling them, and that the collections are maintained in safe and secure conditions. proper temperature, humidity and light levels. These librarians also process new material, including donated and acquired material, and occasionally oversee sales of special collections to raise funds or prune collections to a more manageable size. An academic librarian-archivist works with materials including letters, manuscripts, old maps, books, and works of art.
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