Library Aides 101
*I want to be clear that I am no expert in having library aides. This would not be my dissertation for my doctorate, BUT I’ve had student aides for the past seven years and through a lot of trial and error, this is what I have found works for me. Please feel free to adapt any of these ideas to fit your library, your community, your students/school.
When I made the move from elementary to middle school I was SHOCKED to learn that I would have student aides every class period (except my planning period). I got to choose who they were, how many I would have per period, but due to their schedules I couldn’t necessarily decide who got put together in each class. The counselors made that choice, which is good because when kids ask me if I can put them with their best friend I can honestly say it’s up to the counselors, which takes some of that off my shoulders. You never know if best friends will work well together or get off task talking and playing around.
I have a campus of 6th-8th graders and allow 7th and 8th graders to be library aides. However, I do have teachers whose personal children I’ve known for years that have volunteered when they were in elementary school and allow them to be 6th grade library aides, if they want. I started off with 2 per class period and this year have 5 per period. I’ve found 4 is the sweet spot. That seems like a lot, but I always have work for them. Never is there a day where I’m like: well, we’re all caught up! Everyone off work!
I treat this like a job. I’ve very clear about that when I give my speech about applying to all current 6th and 7th graders. Click here for the presentation. I’m very clear about my expectations and what the responsibilities will be. You can see on the presentation what students need to do in order to apply, but I do expect a lot out of them. And because I do expect them to work a lot for me doing tasks such as shelving, check in/out, cleaning, shifting books, inventory, helping with weeding, and other big projects we have done such as genrefication, diversity audit, and content warnings in books—I reward them using an app called Classcraft.
Classcraft is an app that allows students to get “paid” for the work they do in library aide (or if they work outside their class time). It also promotes teamwork, supporting each other and allows me to gamify my library. See my presentation on how I use it here. Students level up in the game at various rates, depending on how much they work and everyday we do a Random Event to keep things interesting. It helps move kids at different rates through the game. At the end of the year at our Staycation reward day where kids miss a day of school to hang out in the library, I give 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes for: Top Team, Top Individual, Most Gear, Most Pets. We also have a Beat Saber tournament using our campus’s Oculus and I do awards for that, as well as the Library Kahoot! to see how well everyone knows all the inside jokes of the year. The prize buckets are filled with toys, games, candy, snacks, drinks, etc. They also get breakfast, lunch and Bahama Bucks for their reward at Staycation. It’s a fun day, but it’s talked about all year. With kids you can’t have some random day the last week of school to hold over their heads to have them work harder so I allow them to cash in their crystals in Classcraft for: time off work, candy, soda, snacks, etc. They have to be on different levels for the bigger items, but it works really well. These kids work really hard all year doing the mundane tasks like shelving, etc. so I can focus on other things and big picture items.
I love my library aides so much and spend so much time with them that when they leave for high school we always end up wanting to see one another later so on the day of Staycation after school I have Library Aide Alumni Dinner where all my old library aides can come back and we can catch up.
That was a fast and furious version of how I use my library aides, but here are some other things I’ve had them do throughout the years to help out our library:
Book recommendations shared on little stands throughout the library or via QR codes on our Apple TV
Tiktok video creation
Instagram posts in Canva, Adobe, Pic Collage, etc.
Creating book displays, themes
Decorating for various times of year
Organizing closets, moving my office around, cleaning out cabinets, etc.
Setting up, running and tearing down book fairs
Helping with grants
Book curation for library book orders
What did I not answer about having library aides? Drop a comment or DM me so I can help you be successful with your library aide program!
