COOKED
The screen half of this job — copy cataloging, MARC record cleanup, database searching, interlibrary loan paperwork, overdue notices, basic reference lookups — is exactly what language models and integrated library systems already do at usable quality. What holds is the physical and in-person half: shelving and shelf-reading, processing and repairing materials, running the circulation desk, staffing children's story time, and helping the patron who can't use the self-checkout or the public PC. There is no license, no sign-off, and budget pressure on public and school libraries compounds the automation exposure.
This fall is concentrated in 2020 and has not recovered since.
Median pay $34,900 → $44,580 +2.2% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
-6.8% 78,600 → 73,200 on the projections basis
Exposed, and shrinking
Both signals point the same way: the tasks are largely automatable and the BLS projects -6.8% by 2034. This is the case where the score and the forecast agree, and it is the one worth taking seriously.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~13,000 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
ShelverStackerClassifierAccessionerBook SorterBook ShelverLibrary AideLibrary PageBibliographerLibrary ClerkLibrary MonitorLoan TechnicianPage TechnicianStack AttendantLibrarian HelperMedia SpecialistAudio-Visual AideBookmobile DriverCirculation ClerkLibrary AssistantLibrary AssociateLibrary SpecialistLibrary TechnicianTextbook Associate
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Core tasks are already automatable Copy cataloging from OCLC, MARC field correction, ILL request routing through OCLC WorldShare, generating overdue and hold notices, and answering "where's the book on X" are the bulk of billable hours and all of them are now either vendor-automated or one prompt away — the 6 rather than 2 reflects that book repair, shelf-reading a Dewey run, and physically processing new arrivals still have to be done by hands.
Some physical or field component An 11 covers real daily physical work — pushing loaded carts, shelving at floor and top-shelf height, mending spines and applying mylar, clearing jams in the copier and self-check, moving furniture for story time — but it stays under 13 because the building is climate-controlled, predictable, and you're not working in traffic, weather, or a patient's home.
No licence, no signature requirement The MLS-holding librarian signs off on cataloging standards and collection decisions; a library technician needs no state license, no certification exam, and nothing you enter into the ILS creates personal legal exposure — hence the 1 rather than 0 only because ALA-APA support-staff certification exists and almost nobody requires it.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs Fine waivers, hold priorities, and whether a torn paperback gets mended or withdrawn all run against written circulation and collection-maintenance policy, with anything genuinely contested — a challenged book, a patron conduct ban, a purchase decision — escalated to the librarian or branch manager, which puts real but narrow discretion at 4.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (6/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (1/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (8/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (4/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 13 of this occupation's 30 points (43%).
Embodiment (11/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
Substitute Teachers, Short-Term EXPOSED
Self-Enrichment Teachers EXPOSED
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 44/100 — EXPOSED.
Continued shift of the role toward physical/in-person duties that have no digital substitute: collection shifting and weeding projects, materials repair and processing, makerspace and equipment lending (3D printers, hotspots, tool libraries), and staffing programming rooms. Where a library converts vacated cataloging FTE into public-desk and programming hours — visible in job postings retitled 'Library Services Assistant' with makerspace/tech-lending duties — the day's work becomes majority-embodied.
Formal delegation of book-challenge and materials-reconsideration handling to circulation-desk staff under state library-materials laws (e.g., the wave of Texas, Florida, Iowa, Utah statutes requiring documented review and removal decisions). If technicians are named in district procedure as the first-line responder logging challenges and applying age-rating criteria, they own a consequential, contested call.
Mandated-reporter and minor-safety duties written into job descriptions as public libraries absorb more unaccompanied youth, overdose response, and patron behavior incidents — several urban systems (Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia) already train frontline staff in Narcan administration and social-service referral. If incident-report authority sits with the technician on duty, the role carries real consequence under ambiguity.
Task-mix shift: copy cataloging and ILL paperwork are the routine tier; the judgment tier is original cataloging of local/special collections, archival processing of donated materials with no existing record, and reader's advisory for reluctant readers. If consortial shared cataloging absorbs the copy work (OCLC/Ex Libris automation), what remains is the local-unique tier machines have no source record for.
Narrow route only: school-library contexts where parents and districts specifically demand a human intermediary between children and both books and AI tools, and where state law bars automated selection of youth materials. This is a demand for human presence with minors, not for library skill per se, and it is small.
The limit. There is no realistic liability_shield route — no state licenses library technicians and no bill anywhere proposes to. Trust premium is capped low: patrons pay through taxes, not by choosing a human, so budget cuts, not preference, decide headcount. Even with every lever, this stays a modestly-scored occupation whose main protection is that the remaining work is physical, low-paid, and in-person.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 2,850 | $52,040 +17% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 2,060 | $57,290 +29% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,940 | $49,980 +12% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 1,520 | $47,100 +6% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1,510 | $40,740 -9% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 1,350 | $39,390 -12% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 1,290 | $57,330 +29% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 1,290 | $65,690 +47% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 1,290 | $65,690 +47% |
| Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA | 60 | $65,630 +47% |
| New Haven, CT | 230 | $63,970 +43% |
ABC reports on robots being used in Singapore for construction work and library tasks, amid labour shortages.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.