Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

An Information Specialist is responsible for organizing, curating, retrieving, and delivering high-quality information to internal and external stakeholders. This role blends library science, research support, metadata management, and digital content stewardship to enable data-driven decisions, efficient knowledge reuse, and compliance with records and licensing policies. Ideal candidates combine strong information retrieval skills, metadata/taxonomy experience, and the ability to translate stakeholder needs into accessible information products.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Research Assistant or Research Associate supporting literature searches and data collection.
Library Technician / Library Assistant with experience in cataloging and circulation.
Records Clerk or Document Control Coordinator with exposure to compliance and retention workflows.

Advancement To:

Senior Information Specialist / Lead Information Specialist
Knowledge Manager or Knowledge Services Lead
Library Services Manager or Head of Information Services
Data Governance Analyst / Information Governance Manager

Lateral Moves:

Digital Archivist or Digital Repository Manager
Records Manager / Records and Information Manager
Data Analyst or Business Intelligence Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct comprehensive, methodical literature searches and information retrieval across subscription databases (e.g., ProQuest, EBSCO, PubMed), open web sources, and internal repositories to support research, product development, policy and legal teams.
Evaluate, select, and recommend information resources (journals, databases, e-books, trade publications) based on relevance, quality, cost-effectiveness, and stakeholder needs; manage subscription renewals and license negotiations with vendors.
Create, maintain, and improve metadata records and cataloging entries using industry standards (Dublin Core, MARC21, RDA) and controlled vocabularies to ensure discoverability and interoperability.
Design and maintain taxonomies, subject headings, and tagging schemas to standardize classification across intranet, CMS, and knowledge bases; implement hierarchical and faceted navigation structures.
Develop and manage digital asset and content management workflows in platforms such as SharePoint, Confluence, Drupal, or proprietary CMS, ensuring consistent file naming, version control, and access policies.
Build, curate, and publish knowledge products—research summaries, annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, FAQs, user guides, and how-to articles—tailored to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Deliver front-line reference and help-desk support: respond to ad hoc information requests, triage complex queries, provide guidance on search strategies, and escalate specialized questions to subject matter experts.
Train and onboard employees on information discovery tools, advanced search techniques, citation management (EndNote, Zotero), and best practices for information organization and reuse.
Manage institutional repositories and archives, ingesting, describing, and preserving digital collections while ensuring compliance with retention schedules and legal/regulatory requirements.
Perform data quality audits and metadata clean-up initiatives to remediate duplicates, inconsistent tags, and incomplete records; implement automated and manual processes to maintain data integrity.
Design and run usage analytics and reporting (Google Analytics, SharePoint usage, library link resolver statistics) to measure resource ROI and inform collection development decisions.
Partner with IT, legal, procurement, and business teams to develop access controls, licensing compliance, and policies for copyrighted and licensed content.
Lead or participate in knowledge management and information governance projects, contributing requirements, test plans, documentation, and change management communications.
Create and maintain discovery tools—search indexes, saved queries, dashboards, and recommendation engines—to accelerate time-to-answer for employees and clients.
Coordinate with vendors and publishers to troubleshoot access issues, manage account configurations, and implement platform upgrades or migrations.
Conduct competitive intelligence and market research to inform product strategy, market-entry assessments, and executive briefings.
Support clinical, scientific, or legal teams by compiling evidence summaries, systematic review support, and citation retrieval in regulated environments.
Implement and refine retention schedules, disposition workflows, and records inventories in alignment with regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, FOIA where applicable).
Drive continuous improvement by documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), knowledgebase articles, and service-level agreements (SLAs) for information services.
Facilitate cross-functional workshops to harvest tacit knowledge, map information flows, and translate business needs into searchable artifacts and structured data.
Manage small projects: define scope, create timelines, coordinate resources, and report status to stakeholders for information architecture, migration, or curation efforts.
Monitor technological trends in information retrieval, AI-assisted search, semantic indexing, and content intelligence, then pilot tools to improve search relevance and automation.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist with user acceptance testing (UAT) for new knowledge systems and search platforms.
Draft communication templates and newsletters highlighting new resources and research findings.
Provide backup support for records requests, interlibrary loan coordination, or invoice processing for subscriptions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced information retrieval skills across academic, trade, and gray literature sources, including Boolean search strategies and citation chaining.
Proven experience with library and information systems (ILS/OPAC), institutional repositories, or digital asset management systems.
Metadata and cataloging expertise: Dublin Core, MARC21, RDA, subject headings, and controlled vocabularies.
Familiarity with content management systems (SharePoint, Confluence, Drupal) and knowledge base platforms (Zendesk, Freshdesk, LibAnswers).
Practical use of analytics tools (Google Analytics, Tableau, Power BI) to measure resource usage and create stakeholder reports.
SQL and basic query skills for extracting and validating records from databases; comfort with CSV manipulation and batch updates.
Experience with citation and reference management tools (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley).
Understanding of records management and compliance frameworks (retention schedules, FOIA, HIPAA/GDPR basics).
Experience with taxonomy and ontology development, semantic tagging, and faceted navigation.
Familiarity with vendor platforms (EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, Elsevier) and managing entitlements and authentication (IP, SAML/SSO).

Soft Skills

Excellent written and verbal communication; able to summarize complex information for diverse audiences and craft professional knowledge products.
Strong analytical thinking and attention to detail with a methodical approach to metadata quality and search relevancy.
Customer-service orientation and experience handling multiple stakeholder requests with empathy and timeliness.
Project coordination and time management; comfortable juggling routine tasks and project work in an agile environment.
Collaborative mindset and ability to work cross-functionally with IT, legal, procurement, and business users.
Training and facilitation skills to run workshops and user education sessions on research and information tools.
Problem-solving and troubleshooting aptitude for access issues, broken links, and search tuning.
Adaptability and curiosity about emerging search technologies, AI/ML in information discovery, and continuous improvement practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Library Science, Information Science, Library and Information Studies, Information Management, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Library and Information Science (MLIS/MLS), Information Science, Knowledge Management, or equivalent professional certification (e.g., certified records manager).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Library and Information Science
Information Management or Knowledge Management
Archival Studies or Records Management
Data Science or Information Systems
Communications or Research Methodology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years of professional experience in libraries, archives, information services, or knowledge management roles.

Preferred: 3–7+ years with demonstrated experience in metadata/cataloging, digital asset management, subscription/vendor management, and delivering research support to business or research stakeholders.

If you would like this tailored to a specific industry (e.g., healthcare, legal, corporate R&D, academic libraries) or adjusted for senior/junior levels, I can customize responsibilities, skills, and salary band accordingly.