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Student Employment: Position Descriptions

You can apply to one or more of the Library service areas outlined below. Indicate your preferences on your application. 

Not all areas hire every semester. 

Duties

Be a primary contact point between Adams Library and the RIC community. You will serve students, faculty, staff, and the general public.

  • Provide friendly and professional service 
  • Check out, check in, and renew all kinds of library materials 
  • Communicate library policies
  • Sort returned items for shelving and shelve materials
  • Retrieve items from the library stacks (shelves)
  • Answer informational questions via telephone or in-person, referring patrons to librarians or staff when appropriate
  • Assist in gathering usage statistics

Qualifications

  • Customer service with an energetic attitude
  • Strong attention to detail and ability to follow directions 
  • Courteous and effective communication and interpersonal skills
  • Ability to push and pull fully-loaded book carts weighing up to 50 lbs with minimal assistance 

Hours note: This position requires work on weekdays between 8:30am and 4:30pm.

Duties

Assist the Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian in the daily tasks of the Rhode Island College Special Collections.

  • Assist in answering reference questions 
  • Retrieve and shelve unique archival and rare materials
  • Assist with exhibit display creation, research, and set-up/take-down
  • Label and move collections to acid-free enclosures as specified
  • Process archival collections and create finding aids
  • Other special projects as assigned

Qualifications

  • Good organizational and communication skills
  • Attention to detail and ability to follow directions
  • Courteous and effective communication and interpersonal skills
  • Dependability

 

Duties

Help provide access to materials that do not circulate outside the Adams Library building, including scholarship by students and faculty, materials from Special Collections, and materials from the College Archives.

  • Use digitization equipment to make digital counterparts to original physical objects
  • Create descriptive information, or metadata, about these objects and post the finished product in RIC's institutional repository (Digital Collections) 
  • Work with software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Excel and Claris Filemaker Pro
  • Use specialized equipment including a digital copy stand, scanners, and audio-visual equipment

Duties

Assist the Technical Services Department in daily tasks.

  • End process new library materials to prepare them for the stacks
  • Shelve new books and periodicals
  • Search the library catalog to check for duplicate requests or donations
  • Retrieve and/or unpackage mail
  • Assist the Assistant Director and Cataloging Assistant as necessary

Qualifications

  • Strong attention to detail and ability to follow directions
  • Good organizational and communication skills
  • Comfortable learning the Library of Congress classification system

  • Ability to push and pull loaded book carts with minimal assistance

(NOT HIRING FOR SPRING 2026)
Duties

Aid in the daily public service tasks of the reference desk.

  • Keep the reference collection and surrounding area tidy
  • Provide simple public service, such as basic library materials searching
  • Provide directions and answer the phone
  • Shelve and shelf-read reference collection materials

Qualifications

  • Customer service skills and an energetic attitude
  • Strong attention to detail and ability to follow directions
  • Courteous and effective communication and interpersonal skills

Preferred Qualifications

  • Library, education, or IT experience
  • Conversational or higher level of fluency in another language