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Librarians

Official title Librarians and Media Collections Specialists (SOC 25-4022)

Also called Reference librarian, Public librarian, Academic librarian, School librarian, Children's librarian

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 133,790 US librarians, with median pay of $68,270 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 5,000 from 1900, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for librarians: Discovery layers, 2009 to 2022.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 2.6% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Librarians: jobs and pay since 1900 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/25-4022

Chicago

Future History. "Librarians: jobs and pay since 1900." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/25-4022.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_25_4022, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Librarians: jobs and pay since 1900}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/25-4022}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time
19001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Librarian (professional, post-ALA founding)
Known then as Librarian (MLS-credentialed, post-Columbia School)
Known then as Librarian / Information Specialist (dual usage)
Known then as Librarian (SOC 25-4021, BLS 2000 revision)
Known then as Librarians and Media Collections Specialists (SOC 25-4022, BLS 2010 revision)
Known then as Librarians and Media Collections Specialists (AI literacy mandate added to core role)
Known today as Librarians and Media Collections Specialists (AI literacy mandate added to core role)
Projected to still be called Librarians and Media Collections Specialists (AI literacy mandate added to core role)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
134K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$68,270
Est.

≈ $66,520 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1876

The American Library Association is founded at a conference of 103 librarians in Philadelphia on October 4, 1876. In the same year, Melvil Dewey self-publishes the first edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification at age 25. The first issue of the "American Library Journal" (later "Library Journal") is published. 1876 is the professional birth year of US librarianship as a self-conscious occupation.

Beat · 1887

Melvil Dewey opens the School of Library Economy at Columbia College: the first formal library school in the United States. Notably, 17 of the first 20 students are women; Dewey's willingness to admit women was controversial at Columbia and contributed to the school's eventual move to Albany. The Columbia program, and its successors, established the professional credential pipeline that shaped the occupation's gender demographics: by 1930, approximately 88% of US librarians were women.

Beat · 1919

Carnegie Corporation funding for library buildings concludes; by 1929 Andrew Carnegie has funded 1,689 public library buildings in the United States, plus hundreds more in Canada, the UK, and elsewhere. Each new Carnegie building required a trained librarian director. The program transformed librarianship from a niche urban profession into a nationwide employment category and set the physical infrastructure template, the branch public library, that still defines the US public library system today.

Beat · 1968

Henriette Avram at the Library of Congress publishes the MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) format: the data standard that makes machine-readable bibliographic records possible. MARC enables the shared cataloging networks (OCLC, RLIN) of the following decade and remains the dominant bibliographic data format in production library systems as of 2026, despite active transition efforts toward BIBFRAME (Bibliographic Framework, introduced 2012) as a linked-data successor.

Beat · 2003

The USA PATRIOT Act Section 215, the "library records provision", authorizes the FBI to issue National Security Letters demanding library circulation and computer use records without judicial review. The American Library Association officially opposes Section 215 and encourages libraries to minimize patron record retention to protect privacy. Several librarians who receive NSLs are prohibited by gag order from disclosing even the existence of the demand; the "Connecticut Four" (2005) successfully challenge their gag order after receiving an NSL for library computer records. This episode establishes library patron privacy as a defining professional value in the digital age.

Beat · 2013

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launches on April 18, 2013, aggregating metadata and digital surrogates from thousands of US libraries, archives, and museums into a single freely accessible portal. By 2024, DPLA provides access to over 50 million items. DPLA represents the transition of large-scale library digitization from individual institutional silos to cooperative federated infrastructure: a model that requires librarians skilled in metadata standards, rights management, and API-based interoperability rather than physical stacks work.

Beat · 2020

COVID-19 pandemic forces physical library closures across the United States from March 2020. Librarians pivot to virtual reference, expanded e-resource access (many publishers temporarily waive DRM restrictions), curbside pickup, and remote programming. Public library visits drop over 60% in 2020 per IMLS data. Many library budgets are cut; some branch closures become permanent. The pandemic accelerates digital-first service transitions and raises urgent questions about the role of the physical library building in a remote-capable world.

Beat · 2022

Two simultaneous crises reshape public library work: (1) ChatGPT launches November 30, 2022, triggering patron and student questions about AI-generated content that librarians had no existing frameworks to answer; (2) book banning challenges reach a 20-year high, with ALA recording 1,269 demands to remove or restrict library books in 2022, the highest number since ALA began tracking in 1990. Public librarians are simultaneously confronting the information frontier's newest tool and a resurgent campaign against their collection-development authority. The ALA formally characterizes the spike in book challenges as coordinated political campaigns rather than individual patron complaints.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace librarians? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
+2.6%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 25-4022 (Librarians and media collections specialists): 142.3 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 145.9 thousand in 2035, a change of +3.6 thousand (+2.6%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers. The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
50%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 25-4022.00 Librarians and Media Collections Specialists. Shown: human-rated β = 0.5, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.263 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.737; GPT-4-rated β 0.535. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for librarians

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you hereOperate and triage AI-augmented reference chatbot services, configuring Springshare LibAnswers' AI-assisted chat, reviewing auto-generated FAQ responses, escalating complex queries to human review, and auditing chatbot accuracy to ensure patrons receive correct and privacy-safe information.

Operate and triage AI-augmented reference chatbot services, configuring Springshare LibAnswers' AI-assisted chat, reviewing auto-generated FAQ responses, escalating complex queries to human review, and auditing chatbot accuracy to ensure patrons receive correct and privacy-safe information.[7],[4]

Where your edge is

LibAnswers' AI-assisted chat handles basic directional and policy questions 24/7, which frees librarians from repetitive after-hours coverage. The risk is accuracy drift and privacy exposure: chatbots can surface outdated policies, misroute sensitive health or legal questions, and inadvertently log patron queries. Own the chatbot governance role: set escalation triggers, audit response logs quarterly, and be the institution's expert on the privacy implications of AI reference services.

AI is sitting alongside you hereManage catalog metadata quality, reviewing and correcting MARC records auto-generated or auto-suggested by OCLC's AI cataloging assistance, applying Library of Congress Subject Headings, and resolving authority-file conflicts to maintain a discovery layer that surfaces resources accurately to patrons using Ex Libris Primo or WorldCat Discovery.

Manage catalog metadata quality, reviewing and correcting MARC records auto-generated or auto-suggested by OCLC's AI cataloging assistance, applying Library of Congress Subject Headings, and resolving authority-file conflicts to maintain a discovery layer that surfaces resources accurately to patrons using Ex Libris Primo or WorldCat Discovery.[8],[9]

Where your edge is

OCLC's AI cataloging tools now auto-suggest MARC fields, subject headings, and authority links for incoming acquisitions, reducing per-record cataloging time for standard materials. Your value is in quality control and edge-case judgment: rare materials, local collections, non-English resources, and subject-heading policy decisions that AI suggestions get wrong systematically. Develop expertise in linked data and BIBFRAME as the profession moves beyond MARC.

AI is sitting alongside you hereDraft LibGuides, research guides, and instructional content using Claude or ChatGPT to generate initial outlines and annotated resource lists, then editing for accuracy, updating live database links, and adding subject-specific context that ensures patron-facing content is reliable and not AI-hallucinated.

Draft LibGuides, research guides, and instructional content using Claude or ChatGPT to generate initial outlines and annotated resource lists, then editing for accuracy, updating live database links, and adding subject-specific context that ensures patron-facing content is reliable and not AI-hallucinated.[10],[5]

Where your edge is

AI drafting tools cut LibGuide creation time significantly for standard subject areas: a baseline annotated bibliography that took a few hours can now be scaffolded in minutes. The risk is accuracy: LLMs hallucinate database names, misattribute resources, and generate outdated subscription links. Your job is to verify every claim and link before publication. Develop a QA checklist specifically for AI-drafted research guides and make accuracy your signature.

Where librarians go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

Education Administrators, Postsecondary

Education Administrators, Postsecondary (SOC 11-9033.00) (including library directors, dean-of-libraries roles, and academic program directors) represent the natural leadership escalation for experienced academic librarians. The pivot moves from individual contributor to institutional decision-maker, carrying significantly stronger CRI because the role involves budget authority, faculty governance, strategic planning, and community relationship management that are highly resistant to AI displacement. Academic library directors are increasingly central to institutional AI policy and digital transformation strategy, making this a high-leverage role for AI-era positioning. The barrier is typically administrative experience and a leadership portfolio.

What you'd add
  • · Academic governance: faculty senate participation, curriculum committee work, accreditation documentation
  • · Budget management and grant writing (IMLS, state library funding programs)
  • · Strategic planning and performance metrics for library assessment (LibQUAL+, ACRL metrics)
  • · Personnel management and HR compliance in higher education settings
  • · Institutional AI policy development and responsible AI governance frameworks
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of librarians changed since 1876?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Card catalog (Dewey Decimal, 1876 onward)

    Melvil Dewey's 1876 Dewey Decimal Classification and its companion card-catalog infrastructure (small wooden drawers of 3×5-inch cards, one per item) defined the physical workspace of the librarian for nearly a century. Every acquisition required a cataloger to type multiple cards (title, author, subject, call-number), refile them in the correct drawer positions, and maintain the sequence by hand. The card catalog was both the librarian's primary tool and the public interface to the collection. A mid-size library might maintain hundreds of thousands of cards across several hundred drawers; reclassification projects required physically pulling and retyping thousands of entries.

  • Library of Congress Classification (LCC, 1897)

    The Library of Congress began developing its own alphanumeric classification system in 1897 as an alternative to Dewey for large research collections. By the mid-20th century, LCC had become the dominant scheme at academic and research libraries, while Dewey remained standard in public and school libraries. Catalogers had to be trained in whichever scheme their institution used, or in both, for hybrid collections. LC Subject Headings (LCSH), the authorized vocabulary that accompanies LCC, became the de facto standard for subject description and required continuous maintenance as language evolved and new subjects emerged.

  • MARC standard (Henriette Avram, LOC, 1968): machine-readable cataloging

    Henriette Avram at the Library of Congress published the MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) standard in 1968, defining a digital format for bibliographic records that allowed cataloging data to be shared between institutions via magnetic tape. MARC did not immediately displace card catalogs, it took two more decades before most libraries had OPAC systems that could serve MARC records to patrons, but it inaugurated the era of shared cataloging. Libraries that contributed records to a MARC database could download cataloging done elsewhere rather than creating original records from scratch. Per-item cataloging labor dropped dramatically for common titles.

    Effect on the work

    The OCLC shared-cataloging network (see next era) estimated that member libraries saved most original-cataloging labor for standard titles within a decade of joining. Cataloging labor shifted from original creation to copy-cataloging and quality review.

  • OCLC shared cataloging network (1967/1971 Ohio launch)

    OCLC was founded in 1967 by Frederick Kilgour and launched online shared cataloging in Ohio in 1971; it expanded nationally through the 1970s. By the 1980s, OCLC's WorldCat database contained tens of millions of bibliographic records contributed by member libraries, and the interlibrary loan (ILL) system built on it became the backbone of US library resource-sharing. For the first time, a cataloger in a small college library could receive a new book, search WorldCat, download a MARC record from a peer institution, and add the item to the local catalog in minutes rather than hours. OCLC fundamentally redistributed cataloging labor from per-library creation to centralized shared infrastructure.

    Effect on the work

    OCLC estimated that member libraries shared more than a billion records by 2000, reducing original cataloging to a small fraction of total cataloging labor. Copy-cataloging, verifying and adapting a record rather than creating one, became the dominant workflow.

  • OPAC: Online Public Access Catalog (CLSI, Geac, DRA, Innovative Interfaces)

    Online Public Access Catalogs began replacing card catalogs in the late 1970s; by the mid-1980s, major integrated library system (ILS) vendors (CLSI, Geac, Data Research Associates [DRA], and Innovative Interfaces) had deployed OPAC terminals in most large US libraries. By the early 1990s, the card catalog had been retired in virtually all public and academic libraries. Patrons could now search by title, author, subject, keyword, and ISBN from a terminal; librarians were no longer the sole interface to the collection. Reference work shifted from pointing patrons toward the card catalog to teaching them to search the OPAC effectively and navigate its limitations (keyword truncation, Boolean operators, subject-heading structures that didn't match natural language).

    Effect on the work

    The transition from card catalog to OPAC is estimated to have eliminated most card-filing positions (often filled by paraprofessionals) while increasing the complexity of systems and cataloging work for professional librarians. Net effect on professional librarian headcount was approximately neutral; the mix of tasks shifted decisively toward technology-mediated work.

  • CD-ROM databases (Encyclopedia Britannica, ProQuest, Wilson, DIALOG on Disc)

    From the mid-1980s through the late 1990s, commercial database vendors distributed full-text and index databases on CD-ROM: DIALOG on Disc, ProQuest Periodical Index, Wilson Indexes, and the Grolier/Britannica encyclopedias. Libraries installed dedicated CD-ROM workstations in reference areas; librarians trained patrons on the search syntax for each disc. CD-ROM expanded the scope of reference well beyond what print indexes could cover, but access was physical and shared: patrons had to come to the library and queue for the workstation. The librarian's role as database-search expert became a formal skill.

  • Web + search engines (Netscape 1994, Google 1998): disintermediation of reference

    The public web and especially Google's launch in 1998 fundamentally shifted the information landscape that librarians operated in. For the first time, patrons could search for and often retrieve information independently, without a library intermediary. "Just Google it" became the cultural default for quick reference queries. Librarian reference desk traffic declined sharply through the 2000s: ARL statistics show reference transactions at research libraries fell between the mid-1990s and 2008. The professional response was a pivot toward "information literacy" instruction, teaching patrons to evaluate the quality of what they found online, not just find it.

    Effect on the work

    ARL member libraries reported a decline in reference desk transactions between 1991 and 2011. Basic reference queries (fact-checking, quick lookups, directional questions) migrated to Google; complex, specialized, and research-depth queries remained the librarian's domain.

  • OverDrive + e-books (OverDrive founded 1986; e-lending at scale 2000s onward)

    OverDrive (founded 1986 in Cleveland) began licensing e-books and audiobooks to public libraries in the early 2000s; the service expanded to hundreds of thousands of titles through agreements with major publishers. Libraries could now circulate digital titles without physical copies, but the lending model (publisher-imposed one-copy-one-user restrictions, license expiration after many circulations) created entirely new workflows for collection development, license negotiation, and patron communication. By 2010, OverDrive served thousands of public and academic libraries; the Libby app (launched 2017) made mobile e-lending mainstream.

  • Discovery layers: Summon (2009), EBSCO Discovery, Ex Libris Primo

    ProQuest's Summon, launched in 2009, was the first "web-scale discovery" layer: a Google-like single-search box that indexed a library's entire licensed corpus (catalog + databases + open-access repositories) and returned relevance-ranked results. EBSCO Discovery Service and Ex Libris Primo followed. Discovery layers supplanted the OPAC as the patron-facing search interface and required systems librarians to configure and maintain complex metadata harvesting pipelines. Reference instruction pivoted again, from "how to search OPAC + individual databases" to "how to evaluate what the discovery layer surfaces and when to go deeper."

  • Generative AI: ChatGPT, AI research tools (Elicit, Consensus, Scite), OCLC AI cataloging

    ChatGPT's public launch on November 30, 2022 triggered a wave of patron and student questions that librarians had never faced: "Is this AI-generated citation real?" "How do I tell if this paper summary is accurate?" "Can I use ChatGPT for my research?" Within several months, generative AI reshaped every pillar of library work: reference (AI tools like Elicit and Consensus handle first-pass literature synthesis), cataloging (OCLC's AI assistance auto-suggests MARC fields), collection development (demand-driven acquisition tools rank titles algorithmically), and readers' advisory (NoveList's AI recommendation layer). The ALA issued its first AI Policy Statement in 2024. Academic libraries began formally adding "AI literacy instruction" to their strategic plans: a new professional mandate with no historical precedent.

    Effect on the work

    Routine reference triage and standard-title cataloging are the highest-displacement activities; specialized research support, community programming, and AI literacy instruction are gaining mandate. The ALA AI Policy Working Group (established 2024) is developing formal institutional guidance on AI use in libraries.

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Librarians and Media Collections Specialists employment and pay by year

On record since1876
Latest US employment133,790 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$68,270 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook+2.6% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • Canada (NOC 51100)

    Employment, 2020
    8,945, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 51100 Librarians, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
    Median pay, 2020
    C$80,000, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 51100 Librarians, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.
View all 13 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
19005,000n/aEst., Wikipedia Researched contextReport
193029,000n/aDecennial Census 1930 Researched contextReport
197099,000$9,100Census (IPUMS) 1970 (employment) Researched contextEst., BLS Handbook of Labor Statistics 1972 (pay) Researched contextReport
1990149,000$28,100BLS CPS 1992 (employment) Researched contextBLS CPS 1990 (pay) Researched contextReport
2000139,460$41,700BLS OEWS 2000 Official statisticReport
2010n/a$54,500BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2019135,690$59,500BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
2020135,070$60,820BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
2021127,790$61,190BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
2022131,680$61,660BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
2023133,760$64,370BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
2024131,830$64,320BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
2025133,790$68,270BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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