Librarian CV Examples & Templates
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Seeking a new position or your first position as a librarian? Start by building or updating your CV for a librarian. We have the perfect guide to help you create an effective librarian CV, with tips on what to add, skills to include, and how using a CV Maker will save you time.
Start by editing this librarian CV template or explore our 40+CV templates to find the best one for you.
Librarian CV (text version)
Destiny Washington
Denver, CO 80234
(555) 555-5555
example@example.com
Summary Statement
Knowledgeable professional librarian with more than 10 years of experience in the public library setting. Dedicated to serving the community by providing assistance in information retrieval and research techniques. Committed to promoting literacy in the local area by supporting reading programs and other adult education initiatives. Extensive knowledge about materials, research databases, circulation and other aspects of archiving. Experience working with and supervising staff and supporting library operations.
Core Qualifications
- Research
- Documentation
- Curation and cataloging
- Libero management system
- Collection analysis
- Organization
- Critical thinking
- Teamwork
Education
- University of Denver Denver, CO
Master of Science
Library and Information Sciences - University of Denver Denver, CO
Bachelor of Arts
English and Literary Arts
Work Experience
November 2018 – Current
Denver Public Library – Denver, CO
Senior Librarian
- Select and order a wide variety of age-appropriate materials for the library’s children’s department, including over 1,000 books, audiovisual materials and periodicals.
- Collaborate with other librarians, community members, and educators in the area to develop rich literacy and three learning programs for the youth in the region.
- Train and lead a staff of 10 other library associates in the department to help support the learning and reading goals of the local area.
September 2014 – October 2018
Arapahoe Library District – Denver, CO
Librarian
- Assisted an average of 100 patrons per week by providing book recommendations based on interests and feedback and answering questions about materials and information.
- Provided three computer literacy training sessions monthly to members of the community and developed tutorials to help individuals access technology.
- Researched and acquired new library materials to maintain an updated library collection of over 10,000 items.
June 2009 – August 2014
Denver Zine Library – Denver, CO
Library Associate
- Guided students and community researchers who were seeking information by directing them to specific library databases, unique collections and other reference materials.
- Attended community outreach events outside of the library at schools, nursing homes and universities to promote reading and information literacy programs.
- Handled the check-in and check-out process of library books and materials at the circulation desk and kept over 500 records up to date.
Conference Presentations
- Rereading the Classics and their Impact in the Popular Culture Conference – (2022)
- Book Access Conference – (2022)
- Books and Technology: The Essential Role in Education, Online Summit – (2021)
- Libraries Resources in the Digital Era, FLA Annual Conference – (2019)
Conference Attendance
- ALA Annual Conference Exhibition, Washington, D.C. – (2022)
- Internet Librarian 2022, Monterey, CA – (2022)
- The Library Learning Experience, Virtual – (2021)
- FLA Annual Conference, Tampa, Fl – (2021)
- AASL National Conference, Virtual – (2020)
Honors and Awards
- Exceptional Service Award, American Library Association – (2022)
- Outstanding Professional Development Award Finalist – (2021)
- Recognized as Librarian of the Year in the local county system due to high levels of patron satisfaction and commitment to community improvement. (2019)
- Awarded a $3,000 grant from a national literacy campaign by writing a proposal for a community project to help improve the adult population’s reading habits. (2019)
Professional Affiliations and Memberships
- American College and Research Libraries (ACRL) – (2022)
- American Library Association (ALA) – (2021)
- Library and Information Association (LITA) – (2019)
- Colorado Library Association – (2017)
Certifications and Licenses
- Certificate in Early Childhood Literacy – (2022)
- Certificate in User Experience for Libraries – (2021)
- Certificate in Cataloging and Technical Services – (2019)
- ALA-APA Certified Public Library Administrator (CPLA) – (2017)
Profession Relevant Skills
- Strong writing skills, which have helped in writing successful grants for supplementary funds for the library budget for special projects.
- Excellent communication skills when answering questions from patrons about topics at the information desk.
- Solid organizational ability and attention to detail, allowing me to keep the library bookshelves and materials neat and orderly.
- Committed to delivering great customer service to all library patrons when they need help with a question or assistance with a library issue.
- Proficiency working with Destiny Library Manager software, CodeAchi and Apollo ILS (Integrated Library System).
- Ability to actively engage an audience when teaching to give community members a worthwhile experience.
Hobbies and Interests
I am an avid reader and a leader and participant in a community book club. My reading group focuses on reading forgotten classics and analyzing the meaning and purpose of these stories. I am also a volunteer at the community soup kitchen, which provides free hot meals to homeless families and individuals. Once a week, I either work in the kitchen as a cook or help serve meals.
5 essentials of a librarian CV
Contact details
Be reachable! Create a contact details section with your most current information. Include your full name, city, state and ZIP code. Add your phone number, email address and LinkedIn profile. If you have a professional website, like a digital resume or portfolio, include it in this section. Avoid pages unrelated to the position.
Personal statement
Build your personal statement as the only thing the recruiter is going to read. Also called aprofessional summary, this section is you in a nutshell. In no more than five sentences, introduce yourself and pitch the hiring manager your best skills and related librarian experience. Include job-relevant skills, how long you have been in the industry and one or two of your most notable professional accomplishments.
Skills
A librarian CV skills section tells a hiring manager what you bring to the table. Using a bulleted list, create a balanced list of hard skills andsoft skills. Hard skills are all about the job, like cataloging and Alexandria Library Software. Soft skills refer to your work habits and how you work with others, like your collaboration, cultural competency and organization.
If you have no experience, include transferable skills from other employment opportunities, particularly skills that show your leadership and management skills.
Work history
Start with your most recent job and work backward to create a work history section in reverse-chronological order. Using bullet points, list the workplace names, locations and dates worked for each. Under each position, include three quantifiable achievements, like a successful initiative to increase community participation, if you’ve authored or presented research and developed specialized services to better serve your community.
If you have no previous experience as a librarian, include otherrelevant work experience to showcase your abilities.
Education
In this section, include the school name, degree and graduation years. Skip the graduation year if it has been more than a decade. Remember to include any academic accomplishments, like projects, research, scholarships or important memberships.
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Action words for a stand-out librarian CV
Words are powerful and librarians know it. Make your CV powerful by including action words. These verbs strengthen your accomplishments and demonstrate your experience and skills. It will help you catch the recruiter’s attention.
These are a few examples of action verbs for a librarian CV:
- Administered
- Managed
- Developed
- Researched
- Informed
- Clarified
- Assisted
- Created
- Improved
- Reduced
- Budgeted
- Investigated
- Located
- Organized
- Evaluated
- Established
Create a professional librarian CV easily by using ourCV Maker. It’ll provide expert suggestions, step-by-step guidance, and you’ll be able to download in multiple formats. Plus, you can save your CV to return and update it for a new job application. We have 300+CV examples to help you create the perfect librarian CV for you.
Top skills for a librarian CV
Include a balanced mix of soft and hard skills to highlight your abilities as a librarian. Always customize this section to the position you’re applying to by matching the skills mentioned in the job description.
These are a few of the top skills for a librarian CV:
- Research
- Curation
- Cataloging
- Organization
- Documentation
- Libero management system
- Critical thinking
- Creativity
- Cultural competence
- Teamwork
- Collaboration
- CodeAchi
- WorldShare management services
- Mandarin M5
- Apollo ILS
Certifications for librarian CV
Catch the eye of a recruiter and add value to your CV by including your professional librarian certifications. This could be the difference that sets you apart from other candidates.
A few examples of certifications to add are:
- Certificate in User Experience for Libraries
- Certificate in Early Childhood Literacy
- Library Technical Assistant Certificate
- Certificate in Cataloging and Technical Services
- ALA-APA Certified Public Library Administrator (CPLA)
- Library Support Staff Certification (LSSC)
Pair your CV with a matching cover letter
Librarian CV FAQ
What to include in a CV for a librarian?
Before you start writing your librarian CV, save the job description. It will give you all the information you need to include in your CV. Match their requirements to your job relevant skills and traits. Then, start with the five primary sections:
- Contact information
- Personal profile
- Skills
- Job history
- Education
You can continue by adding optional sections. These sections will help set you apart from the other applicants and present your value as a candidate. Examples of optional sections to include are:
- Professional memberships or associations
- Grants or scholarships
- Certifications and licenses
- Volunteer experience
- Research
If you need to include more information,write a cover letter with your CV. A requirement for most job applicants, a cover letter gives the chance to address head on any concerns, like an employment gap. If you’re not sure how to write one, ourCover Letter Builder can help you. It has the same feel of our CV Maker and will guide you every step of the way.
What should a librarian CV look like f?
A librarian CV must be clean and organized. You can achieve that by choosing a good, ready-made template. Our extensiveCV template collection makes it easy. It has different styles, like modern, creative and professional. Find anATS-friendly template to pass the applicant tracking software test.
To create a CV in our CV Maker, simply choose a template, add your information and you’re done! If you change your mind, you can change the template and the builder will add all your information again. Check out ourCV examples to see how a finished product looks!
What to put on a librarian CV professional summary?
A professional summary for a librarian must encapsulate your career in three to five sentences. You need to add your years of experience, your strongest skills and an accomplishment. Think about your career and how you want to present yourself to the manager.
For example:
Certified school librarian with five years of experience. Creator of the “Everybody Reads!” program to boost early childhood literacy. Book curator for the “Would You Read Me a Story?” newsletter. Excellent communicator, creative and collaborative manager.
Do’s and don’ts for building a librarian CV
- Use measurable achievements to describe your librarian skills and experience.
- Use action words to make an impact on your librarian CV.
- Tailor your CV to your target librarian job.
- Use keywords from the job description throughout your librarian CV.
- Format your librarian CV so that it is easy to read byATS software and human eyes.
- Lie about your experience and skills as a librarian.
- Boast about your “incomparable” librarian assistant abilities.
- Include irrelevant personal information such as your ethnicity and age.
- Add skills and experience not pertaining to librarians.
- Forget to proofread. A librarian CV with errors is unprofessional.
Top 4 tips for acing a librarian interview
Research the company or institution before your interview.
Research comes natural to you. Use this skill to your advantage by learning more about a potential employer, their values and goals. This will help prepare you for the interview and to figure out if this is the right fit for your career. Use your findings to formulate questions to ask at the end of the interview. Plus, your knowledge will help ease the nerves and have an idea of what to expect.
Practice before the interview.
Stay one step ahead and research common interview questions to practice. For example:
- Why Did You Choose This Career?
- Describe a Situation in Which You Found That Your Results Were Not Up to Your Supervisor’s Expectations
- What Two or Three Things Are Most Important to You in Your Job?
- What Do You See Yourself Doing in 10 Years?
- Describe a Time When You Put Your Needs Aside to Help a Coworker or Classmate Understand a Task
Ask a relative, friend or colleague for help. They can perform a mock interview and provide feedback on your answers, tone and body language. Write down your best answers and continue practicing on the days leading to your interview. This will help build your confidence and prepare you for other interviews
Prepare questions for your interview.
An interview goes both ways: you’re interviewing the employer as much as they are interviewing you. Prepare three to five questions to help you learn more about the employer and figure out if it is the right move for your career.
Here are a few examples of questions to get you started:
- What are the goals for this role?
- What is the day-to-day like?
- Why did you decide to work for this employer?
- How has the role changed in the past 3 years?
- What training do you provide your staff?
- How do you handle conflict with patrons?
- How do you maintain your staff safe?
- How do you support the community you serve?
Ask open-ended questions and give the interviewer time to fully answer before moving on to the next one.
Gather your references.
Stay one step ahead of the process. Ask previous managers or mentors to become your reference. Remember, they should be able to vouch for your skills and employment. Let them know where you are in the process, and at what point they can expect a phone call or email. Ask ahead if they could also write a letter of recommendation.
If this is your first job, request references from someone who could corroborate your skills, like professors, classmates or volunteer coordinators.
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Librarian CV Example
Nilda Melissa is a Certified Professional Resume Writer who has written for The Washington Post and Latina Style Magazine. She has a master's in Journalism from Columbia University and is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
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