Description
Provide reference and research services for archival collections, managing access tools, reading-room operations, and outreach so users can discover, request, and responsibly use records while safeguarding and interpreting materials.
- • Provide in-person, email, and virtual reference services, conducting effective reference interviews.
- • Supervise reading room operations and security, including researcher registration, orientation, and material retrieval.
- • Maintain and enhance discovery systems, catalogs, and finding aids for researcher access.
- • Create and update research guides, collection overviews, and pathfinders to improve discovery.
- • Verify provenance, rights, and access restrictions when responding to requests and processing orders.
- • Develop and enforce reading-room, access, handling, and reproduction policies.
- • Coordinate digitization-on-demand, scanning, and photographic services; deliver reproductions and citations.
- • Train and direct student workers and volunteers supporting reference and paging.
- • Track reference metrics, turnaround times, and user feedback; prepare service reports.
- • Collaborate with processing, digital, and curatorial staff to address description gaps and prioritize projects based on user needs.
- • Provide instruction sessions, tours, and outreach to teach primary-source literacy and promote collections.
- • Curate and edit materials for online exhibits, social media, and publications.
- • Maintain subject expertise and knowledge of collections to assist advanced research and inform acquisitions or collecting priorities.
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Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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Sources & Standards:
This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
