Career as an Information Officer or a Librarian

A library is a knowledge centre which houses an immense wealth of information in forms of books, research papers, articles, journals, magazines, archives, and various other publications. There are different types of libraries such as public libraries, government libraries, specialized libraries for special categories, institutional libraries and so on.

Professionals who are in charge of a library are known as librarians. The profession of librarian is most suitable for a person whose hobby is reading and who is an information seeker.

There are numerous institutions across the world which offers a course in library and information science. There are certificate courses, diploma courses, degree courses, post graduate courses and doctorate programmes available in library and information science. Certificate and diploma courses are short duration courses which last for six months to one year. Bachelor in library and information science is a three year duration course and Masters in library and information science is a two year duration course.

After the successful completion of a course in library and information science, you can seek a career with Public and Government libraries, libraries of schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions, libraries of private organizations, documentation and information centres, news and broadcasting agencies, publishing houses, museums, archives, galleries, and private documentation centres. Remuneration is also very good in this field. Major career positions available are as assistant librarians, head librarians, information officers, documentation officers, researchers, consultants, and cataloguers.

Major job profile of a library professional or an information officer is to classify, index and catalogue information, documents, publications and books. They may have to prepare abstracts of articles or books or publications to help readers.  They should be always ready to help their library members who are seeking particular information or a particular book. In a nutshell, librarians and information officers are responsible for the safety, storage and maintenance of books, articles, publications, documents, papers and journals which are stored in a library.