Job Check
Librarians and Media Collections Specialists
Administer and maintain libraries or collections of information, for public or private access through reference or borrowing. Work in a variety of settings, such as educational institutions, museums, and corporations, and with various types of informational materials, such as books, periodicals, recordings, films, and databases. Tasks may include acquiring, cataloging, and circulating library materials, and user services such as locating and organizing information, providing instruction on how to access information, and setting up and operating a library's media equipment.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Search standard reference materials, including online sources and the Internet, to answer patrons' reference questions.People already use AI for this at work
- 02Analyze patrons' requests to determine needed information and assist in furnishing or locating that information.People already use AI for this at work
- 03Supervise daily library operations, budgeting, planning, and personnel activities, such as hiring, training, scheduling, and performance evaluations.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Plan and teach classes on topics such as information literacy, library instruction, and technology use.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Code, classify, and catalog books, publications, films, audio-visual aids, and other library materials, based on subject matter or standard library classification systems.AI could speed this up a lot
- 06Confer with colleagues, faculty, and community members and organizations to conduct informational programs, make collection decisions, and determine library services to offer.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Review and evaluate materials, using book reviews, catalogs, faculty recommendations, and current holdings to select and order print, audio-visual, and electronic resources.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Evaluate vendor products and performance, negotiate contracts, and place orders.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Direct and train library staff in duties, such as receiving, shelving, researching, cataloging, and equipment use.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Arrange for interlibrary loans of materials not available in a particular library.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss20%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
54%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 81% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 37% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
AI touches every main task of this job in some way. Your edge is judgment: knowing when AI’s work is right, and checking it before it counts.