India Education & Career

To become a librarian you must have an interest in books as a general category in addition to a love for reading in general as well as reading in your area of specialization. A librarian must also have good communication skills, must be reader friendly, have methodical approach, organizing ability, ability to anticipate user needs, good  general knowledge and an ability to cope with frequent interruptions in a job requiring total concentration.  They must have knowledge of a wide variety of academic, professional and public information sources, and follow trends related to publishing, computers and the media in order to effectively oversee selection and organization of library materials.

Career prospects:

With expansion of the education sector and advent of the IT revolution, the librarian’s profession has become an attractive career.  Librarianship as a profession provides a variety of employment opportunities.  Persons with superior record and high qualifications can achieve high positions.

Trained personnel in this field can find job opportunities in areas like:

o    Public/government libraries.
o    Universities and other academic institutions.
o    News agencies and organizations.
o    Private organization and special libraries.
o    Photo/film libraries.
o    Information and documentation centers.
o    Companies and organizations with large information handling requirements.
o    Museums and galleries, which have reading rooms and research facilities.

Given the growing number of special libraries being commissioned by industry and business houses as well as NGOs to supplement private and government libraries, the demand for professional librarians is increasing.  For those with a masters’ degree the options are wider and one could head a library or opt to work in college and university libraries as a lecturer.

The career for a librarian may begin at the level of library attendant and though promotions may differ from organization to organization, in general the levels followed thereafter are of library assistant, junior librarian, assistant librarian, deputy librarian, and librarian, apart from director or chief librarian or head of an information center.

Library attendant:  Take care of interlibrary loans shelving books, processing bills, subscription renewals and new memberships.

Library assistant:  Main duties involve accession, shelf arrangements, levying of
fines, maintenance and binding of books and other materials, locations of missing books and related technical work.

Junior Librarian/Semi-Professional Assistant: Works at the counter to receive and issue books, sends out reminders on overdue loans, and ensures easy access of books.

Junior Librarian/Professional Assistant: Is responsible for accessioning, classification, cataloguing, ordering books, as well as handling computer data.

Junior Librarian/Assistant Librarian: Selects and acquires books and material, takes care of reference services and computer programming, as well as supervision of semi-professional assistants.

Deputy Librarian: Oversees administration, supervision, and computer programming.

Librarian: Is overall in charge of technical, administrative, and financial matters. Responsibilities include delegation of duties, library supervision and management, personnel administration, budgeting, classification and cataloguing, and recommendation of new acquisitions.

Director/Head of Information Center: Works at the policy and planning level, and is responsible for the center’s organization, coordination, control, leadership, external relations, supervision and administration.

In information services, further designations could be:

Senior Information Analyst: Activities include processing of information, and indexing, documentation etc.

Junior Information Analyst: Assists senior analyst in all aspects of work.

Information Assistant: Information transfers, processing, storage and dissemination of information under supervision of senior staff are main tasks in this position.

Remuneration:

Salaries are varied according to individual qualifications, experience, type, and size of the hiring institution.  Librarians with primarily administrative duties often have greater earnings.  On an average, librarians start with around Rs.  8,000 onwards.