Behind the Scenes: Librarians as Directors of the library program

Outside of lesson planning & development, direct instruction, planning with staff, and PLC meetings, School librarian job responsibilities include managing the library space and collection through many different tasks. A day might include any of the below items, as well as time with students and staff.

Library Management

-Check-out and Check-in of materials

-Shelving materials & shelf reading to make sure items are in order; shelf shifting as new items arrive or shelving needs change

-Pulling books/ resources for displays or teacher use

-Filling & sending ILL (interlibrary loan) to staff/ students in other buildings

-Processing books (adding labels/ covers, printing barcodes/spine labels, drilling paperbacks, stamping)

-Cataloging: uploading records for books ordered from distributors, adding details to existing records (special locations, book type, lists, and more), creating new records, cleaning up old records

-Assessing damage as books are returned

-Cleaning & repairing returned books as needed

-Deselection: assessing the collection for aging or irrelevant/inaccurate materials and removing them from the collection and catalog

-Creating display signs & displays

-Ordering, Learning about, using, and troubleshooting digital resources: ebooks/eaudio, databases, etc.

Collection Development:

Ordering materials in both print and digital (ebook/ eaudio) formats:

- Researching books, including finding and reading reviews on materials, following publishing companies/book stores, and reviewing book lists

-Maintaining current titles/ series: buying replacement titles, updated covers, new/missing series books, and more.

- Discovering interests and needs: Pull reports on student and staff, create interest surveys, etc.

- Placing orders with companies, receive orders, follow up on missing items

Financial/ Budget Management:

Manages and Maintains various budget accounts, including library supplies, building library budgets, Common School Funds (State issued budget for library materials), HPL, clubs, etc.

Technology-driven Librarian Responsibilities:

Technology troubleshooting and repair: First line of help for students and staff

-Troubleshooting issues with student and staff laptops and iPads and their accessories, and other audio/visual items such as AppleTVs, projectors, Cleartouch panels.

-Supporting substitute teacher technology setup/use

- Providing accessibility support for teachers and students regarding hardware and software options (guided access, text to speech, etc.)

-Reporting/ helping find missing iPads & laptops (calling helpdesk or supporting the find device options available)

- Providing log in support for students: usernames and passwords

- Submitting Helpdesk tickets

- Calling the Helpdesk

- Printing: helping students and staff use the printer, troubleshooting issues, calling for support