Training course description: Specialist in Media and Information Services (‘Fachangestellte für Medien- und Informationsdienste’) in the field of libraries

Duration of the training course

• 3 years
• Intermediate examination after one-and-a-half years.

The programme is based on Germany's ‘dual system’ of vocational training: The on-the-job training which trainees receive at the library (ZB MED's sites in Cologne and Bonn) is supplemented by theoretical classroom instruction at the vocational college Joseph-DuMont-Berufskolleg in Cologne.

Content of the training course

Areas covered by the official course syllabus include the following:

Media processing and handling

• Acquisition and indexing of monographs and periodicals
• Formal and subject cataloguing of media holdings
• Library processes, book care, stack work

User and information services

• Granting/cancelling borrowing privileges in the library
• Instructing library users in how to use the library and providing advice on services and available media
• Processing loans, returns, extensions, overdue reminders, and reservations
• Applying library regulations and scales of fees and charges
• Providing media through various delivery systems (inter-library loans)

Public relations and marketing