A catalog librarian job is to provide all the essential information to other staffs or patrons, in order to retrieve any data or book through online catalog facility available in the library. Working as a team, you will have to make yourself active in developing your departmental procedures and policies.
Major Duties and Responsibilities
- Several documentations need to be prepared along with tools for training.
- Make yourself present in the staff training sessions.
- You should be assisting in the development and implement of all the system wide projects.
- You should offer collaborative work with your fellow staffs.
- You should be able to provide information about the accurate position, description and accessing points for non-books available in the library.
- All the books should be classified with the help of Dewey decimal classification system or any other mandatory systems available.
- Call numbers should be constructed to all the books, new and existing, available in library's collection.
- You should create the original Machine Readable Cataloging records (MARC) and library's online catalog should be updated with all the new OCLC records.
- You should assist other staff members of the library, performing cataloging process.
- Should prepare or assist others in preparing various statistical reports and other needs reports and make analysis over it.
- You should respond to all inquiries of other official library staff about the cataloging processes and practices.
Masters Degree in Library Science provided by any school of Librarianship, which is accredited by American Library Association, is a must for catalog librarian job.
Librarian certification from the Washington State will do for the job. Minimum of two years experience in any library with progressive training and ability to complete assigned duties and responsibilities related to the catalog librarian job.
Abilities and Skills Required
- Knowledge about MARC, AACR2 and other cataloging rules should be possessed.
- You should be fluent in English and must know a lot to work with mathematics.
- Knowledge about online database and automated library systems is needed.
- You should create accurate descriptions through MARC, for print and non book materials.
- You should have a good time management skill in order to increase productivity.
- You should know how to use the software and hardware equipments of computers including the internet and electronic database.
- A leadership capability is required for catalog librarian job to lead a team and to solve problems.
- They should be physically fit enough to move, lift or drag heavy objects or bulk books.
For a catalog librarian job, the expected salary may be around $45 000 per year. The salary is not a fixed one and depending upon your expertise, the salary will be varying. This is a good job option and the job opportunities always remain significant.
