Librarians Need to Stop Saying “I’m Just a Librarian”

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One of the most common things I hear from librarians who are considering a career change has nothing to do with resumes, LinkedIn, interviews, or job postings. It usually appears much earlier in the conversation, often before we’ve even discussed their experience. At some point, they will casually say something along the lines of, “I’m just a librarian.” Sometimes it’s phrased as “I just answer questions” or “I just help people find information.” The wording changes, but the underlying sentiment is usually the same. They have already decided that what they do isn’t particularly impressive, and because they’ve reached that conclusion, they begin evaluating every opportunity through the lens of what they believe they lack rather than what they already possess.

I think part of the problem is that expertise rarely feels like expertise when you’re the person performing it every day. Research doesn’t feel extraordinary when you’ve spent years navigating databases, evaluating sources, and tracking down answers. Teaching doesn’t feel extraordinary when you’ve taught hundreds of classes. Project management doesn’t feel extraordinary when coordinating programs, schedules, budgets, partnerships, and competing priorities has become part of your normal routine. The longer we perform a skill, the less likely we are to notice it. What once required effort becomes automatic, and because it becomes automatic, we begin treating it as though it has little value.

Unfortunately, employers don’t evaluate your work based on how difficult it feels to you. They evaluate it based on the value it creates. Those are two very different measurements. A librarian may spend twenty minutes answering what appears to be a simple question, but hidden within that interaction are research skills, critical thinking, information analysis, source evaluation, communication, and problem-solving. The patron only sees the answer. The librarian often only sees the task. What neither side immediately sees is the collection of professional skills required to reach that outcome.

This becomes especially problematic when librarians begin exploring opportunities outside the profession. They open job descriptions for research analysts, project managers, trainers, knowledge managers, community engagement specialists, operations managers, and dozens of other roles, then immediately start disqualifying themselves. They focus on unfamiliar titles while overlooking familiar skills. The irony is that many of the competencies these employers are seeking are the same competencies librarians have been developing for years. Research is still research. Training is still training. Leadership is still leadership. Project management is still project management. The environment may change, but the underlying skills often remain remarkably similar.

One of the exercises I frequently encourage librarians to do is to stop describing their responsibilities and start describing the skills hidden underneath those responsibilities. “Providing reference services” is not a skill. It is a task. The skills behind that task include research, information retrieval, communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving. “Planning programs” is not a skill. It is a task. The skills behind it include project management, event planning, stakeholder engagement, marketing, and assessment. Once you start looking beneath the surface of your day-to-day work, you begin to realize how much expertise has been hiding in plain sight all along.

What frustrates me most is that librarians often spend their careers helping other people recognize valuable information while failing to recognize the value of their own experience. We have a tendency to minimize our work, reduce complex responsibilities to simple descriptions, and hide behind the word “just.” Yet the moment you strip away the library-specific terminology and focus on the actual skills being used, a very different picture begins to emerge. What many librarians call “just doing my job” frequently includes research, instruction, leadership, project management, community engagement, technology support, information management, and strategic planning.

The challenge, then, is not becoming qualified. In many cases, librarians are already qualified for far more opportunities than they realize. The challenge is learning how to communicate those qualifications in language that people outside the profession understand. Once you understand that distinction, career transitions begin to feel much less like starting over and much more like translating existing experience into a new context.

And that, ultimately, is why I wish librarians would stop saying they’re “just” librarians. Not because there’s anything wrong with being a librarian, but because the phrase dramatically understates the breadth of knowledge, expertise, and professional skill that the role often requires. The sooner we stop minimizing our own experiences, the easier it becomes for others to recognize their value as well.

If you’ve ever looked at your resume and felt like it didn’t fully capture the work you actually do, you’re not alone. One of the biggest challenges library and information professionals face isn’t a lack of experience. It’s a lack of language. We spend years developing valuable skills, then struggle to explain those skills in ways employers outside the profession immediately understand.

That’s exactly why I created Translate Your MLS: How to Turn Library Experience Into Language Employers Understand.

It’s a 67-page workbook designed to help library and information professionals identify transferable skills, rewrite resume bullets, strengthen LinkedIn profiles, explore career paths, and communicate their experience with greater confidence.

If you’re ready to stop underselling yourself and start translating your experience into language employers understand, you can learn more here:

*Translate Your MLS: How to Turn Library Experience Into Language Employers Understand*

Because you’re not starting over. You’re building on skills you’ve already spent years developing.