Top 12 Librarian Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s overloaded information maze, librarians are the guides—organizing, translating, and opening doors to knowledge across formats. A resume that showcases the right librarian skills signals you can wrangle metadata, support users, and adapt as technology shifts underfoot.
Librarian Skills
- Cataloging
- Research
- Digital Archiving
- Information Literacy
- Collection Development
- Reference Services
- Library Instruction
- MARC21
- RDA (Resource Description and Access)
- Dewey Decimal Classification
- Integrated Library Systems (ILS)
- Bibliographic Databases
1. Cataloging
Cataloging creates structured, searchable records for physical and digital items so people can find what they need fast and without guesswork.
Why It's Important
Consistent, standards-based cataloging turns chaos into clarity, improves discovery, and keeps collections interoperable across systems and consortia.
How to Improve Cataloging Skills
Sharper records, fewer dead ends. Try this mix:
Adopt and update standards: Align work with current Library of Congress practices, RDA guidelines, and local policies to ensure consistency.
Continuous learning: Build a habit of short, regular refreshers—webinars, listservs, working groups. Practice beats theory.
Leverage tools: Use cataloging utilities and editors (e.g., Connexion, MarcEdit) to speed batch edits and authority control.
Quality control: Peer review new records. Spot-check legacy data. Track common errors and eliminate them at the source.
User-centric description: Choose subject headings and notes that match how patrons actually search. Test, tweak, repeat.
Collaborate: Share templates, macros, and local decisions. Collective wisdom saves time and reduces drift.
Do this well and the catalog stops being a wall of fields and becomes a map.
How to Display Cataloging Skills on Your Resume
2. Research
Research means framing questions, scouting sources, filtering noise, and drawing sound conclusions—and teaching others to do the same.
Why It's Important
It keeps you current, sharpens collection choices, and elevates every interaction at the desk, online, or in the classroom.
How to Improve Research Skills
Make it a craft, not a scramble:
Stay updated: Read professional journals and newsletters. Track methods, data ethics, and discovery trends.
Boost digital fluency: Practice advanced search, filters, alerts, and citation management in major databases.
Network: Trade techniques with colleagues at meetups and conferences. Fresh eyes reveal better paths.
Master tools: Build search strategies in subject databases (e.g., PubMed, ERIC) and test them against real questions.
Evaluate with rigor: Use the CRAAP test (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose) to judge sources quickly.
Collaborate: Join cross-campus or cross-department projects—co-author guides, run pilots, share results.
Seek feedback: Present findings, ask for critique, iterate. Refinement beats perfection on the first pass.
How to Display Research Skills on Your Resume
3. Digital Archiving
Digital archiving preserves files and their context so they remain findable, authentic, and usable long after formats or platforms change.
Why It's Important
Collections rot without care. Digital preservation safeguards cultural memory, institutional records, and research outputs against loss and obsolescence.
How to Improve Digital Archiving Skills
Think lifecycle, not storage:
Use standards: Apply clear metadata schemas (such as Dublin Core) and preservation-friendly formats.
Build resilient storage: Combine redundancy, fixity checks, and offsite copies. LOCKSS isn’t a slogan—it’s an insurance policy.
Prioritize access: Implement repositories (e.g., DSpace, EPrints) with solid indexing, clear rights statements, and clean navigation.
Train and update: Track preservation threats, migration paths, and new tools. Short, frequent training wins.
Document policies: Write pragmatic policies covering selection, rights, preservation actions, and withdrawal.
Quality assurance: Schedule audits. Validate files. Verify checksums. Replace what breaks.
How to Display Digital Archiving Skills on Your Resume
4. Information Literacy
Information literacy is the habit of finding, judging, and using information ethically and effectively—and helping others do it confidently.
Why It's Important
It turns confusion into agency. Patrons learn to question, compare, and cite, which strengthens scholarship and everyday decision-making.
How to Improve Information Literacy Skills
Keep it practical and adaptable:
Stay current: Track trends in misinformation, search behavior, and learning science.
Professional development: Join workshops and peer exchanges. Share lesson plans and rubrics that actually work.
Teach with frameworks: Use the ACRL Framework to scaffold skills from novice to expert without jargon overload.
Use tech wisely: Demonstrate databases, open resources, and citation tools with real tasks and time limits.
Assess and iterate: Quick pre/post checks surface gaps. Adjust instruction immediately, not next semester.
How to Display Information Literacy Skills on Your Resume
5. Collection Development
Collection development selects, acquires, and shapes resources—physical and digital—to fit the community’s needs now and as they evolve.
Why It's Important
Great libraries mirror their communities. Intentional selection ensures relevance, breadth, and equitable representation.
How to Improve Collection Development Skills
Pragmatic and data-aware wins the day:
Assess community needs: Use surveys, usage stats, and outreach to pinpoint gaps and priorities.
Write it down: Maintain a clear, inclusive collection policy that guides choices and defends them when challenged.
Diversify formats and voices: Balance perspectives across print, eBooks, audio, streaming, and accessible formats.
Co-create with stakeholders: Invite faculty, students, and local partners to suggest and review. Transparency builds trust.
Weed with purpose: Apply objective criteria to withdraw outdated or low-use materials. Make room for the new.
Use analytics: Let circulation data, holds, interlibrary loan requests, and course lists inform buying.
Keep learning: Track publishing trends, pricing models, and licensing terms. Negotiate smarter each cycle.
How to Display Collection Development Skills on Your Resume
6. Reference Services
Reference services help people surface answers, refine questions, and discover resources—at the desk, through chat, or anywhere users appear.
Why It's Important
It’s where trust is built. Thoughtful guidance saves patrons time and steadily improves their own search skills.
How to Improve Reference Services Skills
Make the experience crisp and human:
Use a behavioral framework: Apply clear greeting, probing, and follow-up practices to keep interactions efficient and empathetic.
Train continuously: Rotate staff learning on new databases, discovery tools, and inclusive communication.
Offer virtual options: Provide chat, email, and video consultations with clear hours and expectations.
Increase discoverability: Tune the catalog and guides. Plain language helps; tangled jargon hurts.
Collaborate: Share referrals and knowledge with partner libraries and campus units to extend reach.
Promote services: Use the website, signage, and classes to signal where and how help happens.
Measure and refine: Collect brief feedback and track resolutions. Close loops on recurring pain points.
How to Display Reference Services Skills on Your Resume
7. Library Instruction
Library instruction teaches people how to navigate systems, judge sources, and build research strategies that actually hold up.
Why It's Important
Instruction turns one-time answers into durable skills. It scales support across courses, cohorts, and community programs.
How to Improve Library Instruction Skills
Teach less, let them do more:
Stay aligned: Map lessons to the ACRL Framework and course outcomes. Clear targets, better results.
Use interactive tools: Quizzes, collaborative boards, and quick polls keep energy (and attention) up.
Active learning first: Mini-tasks beat long lectures. Model a skill, then let learners practice immediately.
Assess quickly: Pre-checks, exit tickets, or one-minute reflections reveal what stuck and what slipped.
Embed with faculty: Co-design assignments, add just-in-time sessions, and place guides inside the LMS.
Highlight resource variety: Databases, OER, special collections—offer choices that fit different needs and access levels.
Keep sharpening: Swap materials with colleagues, attend workshops, and iterate relentlessly.
How to Display Library Instruction Skills on Your Resume
8. MARC21
MARC21 is the common data model libraries use to store and exchange bibliographic, holdings, and authority data in machine-readable form.
Why It's Important
It keeps records portable and consistent across systems, consortia, and time—vital for sharing and discovery.
How to Improve MARC21 Skills
Think fluency, then flexibility:
Track updates: Review changes from the Library of Congress and local policy decisions so fields and subfields stay current.
Train with purpose: Short, scenario-based sessions on tricky fields (e.g., 264, 336–338) beat general overviews.
Use smarter editors: Streamline batch edits, validation, and authority control with specialized tools.
Join the conversation: Engage in cataloging forums and listservs (such as AUTOCAT) to compare approaches and solve edge cases.
Experiment with linked data: Explore how MARC maps to BIBFRAME and other models; understand strengths and limits.
How to Display MARC21 Skills on Your Resume
9. RDA (Resource Description and Access)
RDA is a cataloging standard that guides how we describe resources across formats so users can find, identify, select, and obtain them with less friction.
Why It's Important
It improves consistency, supports user-focused description, and aligns with modern metadata and linked data directions.
How to Improve RDA (Resource Description and Access) Skills
Build depth through practice:
Check the Toolkit: Refer to the RDA Toolkit and policy statements to resolve nuanced cases.
Learn by doing: Catalog varied formats—scores, maps, datasets—to cement rules and judgment calls.
Discuss edge cases: Use peer review and working groups to standardize local interpretations.
Align tools: Configure templates and macros that reflect RDA choices and reduce repetitive entry.
Read and reflect: Follow articles and case studies to see how others solve persistent problems.
How to Display RDA (Resource Description and Access) Skills on Your Resume
10. Dewey Decimal Classification
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) arranges materials by subject in a numeric hierarchy so shelves make sense and browsing works.
Why It's Important
It standardizes placement, speeds retrieval, and helps patrons navigate from topic to topic without a map.
How to Improve Dewey Decimal Classification Skills
Keep it logical and local:
Stay updated: Monitor DDC updates so numbers reflect current knowledge and topics.
Tune locally: Expand or collapse ranges where your community needs finer detail—or simpler groupings.
Teach the system: Offer short guides and quick tours. Clear signage reduces confusion dramatically.
Blend tech: Add catalog wayfinding, shelf maps, or QR codes linking to guides and related topics.
Gather feedback: Ask staff and patrons where they get stuck. Adjust layouts and numbers accordingly.
Share practices: Trade solutions with peer libraries facing similar classification puzzles.
How to Display Dewey Decimal Classification Skills on Your Resume
11. Integrated Library Systems (ILS)
An Integrated Library System (increasingly called a Library Services Platform, or LSP) manages cataloging, circulation, acquisitions, e-resources, and patron data in one environment.
Why It's Important
ILS/LSPs streamline operations, power discovery, and surface the analytics you need to shape services and collections.
How to Improve Integrated Library Systems (ILS) Skills
Make the system work for people, not the other way around:
Refine UX: Simplify interfaces, labels, and workflows. Test with real users; trim unnecessary clicks.
Think mobile: Ensure responsive catalogs and account features. Patrons live on phones; your system should too.
Integrate smart tech: Add RFID, QR codes, and relevance tuning to speed service and improve search quality.
Protect privacy: Enforce least-necessary data retention, clear consent, and strong access controls.
Interoperate: Connect with discovery layers, repositories, and consortial services through standards and APIs.
Train relentlessly: Offer role-based training and quick reference guides. New staff ramp faster; veterans waste less time.
Use analytics: Mine reports for patterns—holds, no-shows, search zero-results—and fix what’s broken.
How to Display Integrated Library Systems (ILS) Skills on Your Resume
12. Bibliographic Databases
Bibliographic databases collect citations, abstracts, and sometimes full text, enabling targeted search and smart linking across disciplines.
Why It's Important
They anchor reference and instruction, speed literature reviews, and reveal trends you can’t see by browsing alone.
How to Improve Bibliographic Databases Skills
Clarity, coverage, and speed:
Improve data quality: Standardize metadata, deduplicate records, and maintain authorities to boost precision.
Design for humans: Keep interfaces clean, labels obvious, and help text short. Test with beginners and experts.
Advance search: Offer faceting, Boolean support, fielded search, and saved alerts that actually deliver.
Ensure interoperability: Support standards like Z39.50 and modern APIs so systems share data smoothly.
Enable remote access: Provide secure, seamless authentication with the least friction possible.
Train users: Create quick guides and short videos. Show power features with real research questions.
Listen and iterate: Add a simple feedback loop. Fix confusing filters, reorganize facets, clarify results.
Preserve for the long term: Plan for format migration and storage checks so content stays accessible.
How to Display Bibliographic Databases Skills on Your Resume
