A series of research papers from the Association of Research Libraries has warned that a large proportion of librarians will be coming up to retirement in the next few years.

The first paper in the series, published in March 2017, warned that academic librarians in the US have “never been older” with an average age of 49, and 24 percent aged 60 and over. The second paper in the series, published October 2017, projected that the period between 2015 and 2020 “is almost certain to require more hiring than any time since 1985” due to the large number of librarians over 65 and the likelihood that few will work past 70.

While the report said that it is “a great time to be looking for a job in an ARL library,” it noted that the nature of these jobs appears is changing. The report noted a steady increase in the number of “nontraditional” roles among new hires, whose primary expertise lies in fields “beyond librarianship” such as computing, finance, law and human resources.