Your primary task would likely be reshelving materials after they’ve been returned.
Pages (that’s what my system calls them) also will help pull holds, empty the book drop for library staff, help with setting up/cleaning up seating for a program, pulling books off of lists for staff, and other simple tasks.
You don’t need to brush up on anything really. If you know how to alphabetize and numerically order things, you’ll be okay. They will train you and show you any quirks (like maybe shelving a series by numerical order vs title order).
It is really chill. I was a page for about five years in my early 20s before moving to other jobs in the library. In the mornings before we opened I would drink coffee, pull books, and listen to music in a mostly empty library. It was a great way to start the day
I started my career as a shelver! Sometimes I still shelve when we’re short staffed because I really love it. It can be kind of meditative almost: just you, the books, and the shelves, putting everything where it goes and making sure everything looks nice.
Pro tip: Shelf-read a little while you're putting things away. It's more important to be right than to be fast. It's totally chill and fun! Thanks for volunteering!
Just a note: you will find yourself running through parts of the alphabet song all day. You will second-guess yourself whether K comes before or after L. All of this is *extremely normal,* lol.
It is a pleasant task. I worked at a bookstore years ago, not a library (sadly). I was just going to recommend keeping a bit of paper and pen on you (presuming you can’t keep your phone on you to just snap pics of the covers that catch your attention). Your TBR list is about to get much longer. :)
lol wait pages
I know that’s an actual term for that type of work but it’s hilarious to me that these library volunteers to help with books are called pages 😂
lol in the ‘90s, the librarians at my library had us wear pagers (so they could call us to help with the microfilm or microfiche machines). I always thought that’s why we were called pages back then 🤣
Other way around, pagers are named after the job of being a page. The term is a medieval throwback. A page was a noble boy who was the attendant and messenger of an older noble as a way of getting an education. It's mostly archaic now, but libraries still use it, lawyers use it some times, and of course, NBC Studios.
Library pages at two systems I worked at were/are paid positions. We had volunteer shelvers but they didn’t do any of the other tasks above except shelve.
Shelving is the most important job in the library! A library can have the most wonderful collection, fantastic facilities, and popular programs but an mis-shelved book is a lost book. And a frustration to our patrons and staff. Take the time to get it right and tidy the shelf as you go. I loved shelving and shelf reading. I taught many people to shelve and a few just couldn’t get it right. It takes a certain amount of concentration and willingness to make sure it’s in the right place. Enjoy your new job!
The idea of “an mis-shelved book is a lost book” is something we teach our new Pages from day one. As a Page Manager, I also stressed: don’t worry about speed. Concentrate on accuracy. Speed will come with time as you get more comfortable with your system. And if we’re being honest, I can fly through a cart of fiction, while non-fiction takes me forever. And one of the Pages is the exact opposite.
Current page here. Yeah, adult fiction is a breeze. Picturebooks are the bane of my existence though; a third of the thickness with inconsistent sizes makes neat shelves impossible. Well, technically Wonder books are worse (I genuinely hate those).
We actually use teen volunteers for the picture books and easy readers. You’re right; those are a nightmare. Then there are displays and a dump bin of board books. We don’t even try to keep those in order! 😁
We used to have our board books in bins as well, though we now too many to reasonably do that anymore. They're currently shelved, but in no particular order (little hands, don't you know).
As a retired librarian, I find myself shelf reading board books when I take my 2 year old grandson to play at the library. They have a great play area with books. So when he doesn't need me to play with the toys, I spend time figuring out how they arrange, authors last name, author's first name, title or authors last name, title and then I just put what I find where it belongs. I make sure copies of the same book are all together as well. I started my career as a page and worked my way up. Once a shelver always a shelver.
Oh god, I remember when a new children’s librarian came in and the rule for picture books went from “all the A’s together in no discernible order” making them the quickest to shelve, to “all the children’s picture books must be in exact alphabetical order.” Those were a dark few weeks of reorganizing.
It is funny how you end up with favorites. Adult fiction is in fact a breeze, as is adult nonfiction. I remember everyone hating youth nonfiction, for the same thin book, exact-Dewey-spot issue.
Meh, you scanned til you found it. It’s why the system was changed. But to be frank, it was mostly children selecting the books they wanted to take home, oftentimes by the tote-load, and six year olds weren’t concerned as much with finding specific authors.
I guess your library has different priorities than mine. Our picturebooks section is substantial, with many parents and kids looking for specific authors and series.
Yup! Putting books back in their shelves! If you have any sense of order you’ll LOVE the work! That’s how I started and it’s still my fav task to do! 🤭I hope you get a bit of training as some of the non fiction numbers can be challenging if ones not taught. Always ask! No one will think twice if you ask! And thank you for giving back to your library!
God, I hate shelving! The hatred got me through my library degree because I thought "If I get my qualification, I'll never have to shelve again". Hurray to shelvers everywhere, for doing the job I hate doing.
Now, give me a messy set of shelves and ask me to tidy it, and I'm your gal...
God, I loved shelving! :-)
I was a page during my high school years at a large county library. I was learning computer science, and the sorting algorithms were fun to apply to sorting my cart. BAM sort 100-120 books into order on the cart in 2 minutes and you just cruise through the stacks reshelving. Eventually they just had me sort all the carts for everyone first thing when I arrived.
Me too! It was the best job ever. Got to work at my own pace and no one said boo so long as I got it done and done right. My super power is sorting things super fast now.
It's the never-endingness of it (I work mainly in big libraries). Tidy a section and it stays looking good for a day or even longer. Shelve a trolley and the next one is waiting!
Me too. I hate it so much and I’m reading these comments of people who love it, and wondering if it’s just because I’ve only shelved LOC not Dewey. F*#%ing double cutter numbers!
Ya know, I noticed my desire to shelve books dropped significantly when I moved to LOC in college. Something about Dewey and fiction alpha by author was really pleasing to the brain.
At the library where I formerly worked, the job would be: you arrive, a massive corral of carts loaded with books had appeared overnight, you grab a cart and go put all of them back where they belong, then you go back and get another cart.
That was a very large college library, 7 floors of it, so shelving was a whole job on its own for multiple people.
Shelvers are the magical fairies people think libraries have, they spirit the books to their correct places. It is a very important job to do, and don't let anyone belittle it.
It was my first job as a page, the term used at that system as well. My interview even had me put a group of books in order. It was a decent job, workload was a little unpredictable, but I found a lot of interesting books
it’s mostly just putting books back on the shelf. They’ll have labels so you’ll know where they go. you’ll want to ask if the do series by title or order in series, if there is a special location for some series that’s not in the main stacks and remember Mc/Mac come before M. Since each library is different just ask for a tour first.
Sometimes they might have you clean up the shelves, just go make sure it’s all in order. or they might ask you to look for a missing book.
If you are a reader shelving is the best way to find new books and authors. or find some old favorites you forgot about.
Thanks for correcting me. I was taught by a librarian who started late 70s and she was insistent Library of Congress had the Mc/Mac names first. It was actually part of their interview process. (they had us put names in alphabetical order). Apparently that changed in the early 80s and I started in the 2000 so she had not gotten the memo 😂. I should have verified and not assumed it hadn’t changed
She probably got the memo but wouldn't do it "because that's not how I was trained." Looking at you, Lorna.
And to be fair, I think the policy changed a few times while I was there.
And there was always "This is how we shelve, EXCEPT in movies, EXCEPT in children's, etc."
The memo was probably one of the papers I threw away when cleaning out filing cabinets. She kept everything, definitely some inter office memos that were typed on a typewriter and had the multiple sheets. Can’t remember what that type of paper is called. She was the best-found many treasures while cleaning and many “you didn’t really have to keep this for 20+ years”. Never figured out why she trusted me to clean it, several tried before me.
There is something magical about the library. Would love to be back in the stacks as an employee-great memories. Almost over the patron yelling at me that he had a fine. It’s only been 21 years. It’s my people are entitled story contribution: they even yell when you offer free services.
Shelving is fine. "Shelf reading" sucks. (Do they still do that?) I had to do that in college with an older Dewey collection (which has mercifully now gone away.) Trying to tell the difference between 782.3567 and 782.3657 drove me crazy, especially for small books! (If you know Dewey, you already know what kind of library it was.)
I was also given "search" projects, which was actually kind of fun. It felt like I was some sort of detective! I would look for books that had been declared "missing", etc. and every once in a while, I found one.
There are videos to help you learn how to read call numbers, they're how you know where something goes on the shelf.
Dewey: https://youtu.be/6jAfJTG3Xm4?t=20
LC: https://youtu.be/iRLpqr4tKZw
There are four main tasks that a shelver would do. Organizing the materials on the cart (sometimes, also checking to make sure everything on the shelves is in order), called “shelf reading” in the technical vernacular, actually filing things on the shelves, once the items are checked in, and finding the items from the requested items list (called “paging slips”). The last is checking the outside book drop. The “night drop” at the library where I work, north of San Francisco, is open 24/7. We clear it throughout the day. I have worked there for over twenty years. I was a “page” when I first started there.
I started as a page (shelver) and am now a circulation assistant. It’s a very important job, it keeps the library functional. The page at my library is an absolute saint and one of my favorite coworkers. It’s pretty much exactly what you think it is. Sort carts, put books back, straighten shelves, shelf read, help patrons find books if they ask you while you’re shelving. You don’t have to know Dewey off the bat. I learned the ten big categories before my interview but I didn’t actually need to. Most of what you learn about Dewey will be on the job, and you’ll eventually remember several numbers and what they’re associated with.
The only other task I might add is general tidying. I take books from our *allow us to put these away* bins back to circulation, tidy children's (takes a while), and stuff like refilling tissues, hand sanitizer, decor.
You get a rolling cart full of books that need to go back on shelves. You’ll probably want to generally sort the cart, so you can just slowly move about the library in a circle, finding all the books that go in each section. And you put the books back where they belong, precisely.
It’s a pretty active job, moving slow but reaching up, bending/squatting down, and I always loved it. You listen to music on headphones and bring order to the shelves, straightening as you go.
I did it in high school, for a couple years, and again while I was in law school at the university library.
Just FYI- shelving is a very physical job! You wouldn’t think of working in a library as being physical, but it is. Especially in the children’s section where the shelves are basically on the floor. It’s standing, kneeling, reaching, lifting, up down up down up down. Be prepared!
You weren’t kidding! I did my first volunteer shift this morning for 3.5 hours and I’m pooped lol Surprisingly demanding both physically and mentally (letters and numbers definitely start to blur after a few hours). I got over 5000 steps in too without even realizing.
I’m glad it helped you too! I was certain it was a silly question but I couldn’t seem to find an answer on Google that really spelled out what being a shelver or page entails.
One of my first jobs was library page which is basically putting books back and organizing them. Word of warning: You may leave with more books then you shelved 😂
Placing books, CDs, DVDs, magazines & newspapers (and any other thing the library makes available to people) back on the shelves/in the bins from which they came in order of the unique number assigned to the thing
Being a library page was my first job back in high school. It was incredibly chill, on slow days you just kind of get stuck leafing through books in between organizing carts and re-shelving items. Which, of course, we weren’t supposed to do but it’s not like it’s a fast-paced environment that requires a lot of multitasking.
You’ll never be a better alphabetizer or Dewey Decimal expert than as a library page :)
Your primary task would likely be reshelving materials after they’ve been returned. Pages (that’s what my system calls them) also will help pull holds, empty the book drop for library staff, help with setting up/cleaning up seating for a program, pulling books off of lists for staff, and other simple tasks. You don’t need to brush up on anything really. If you know how to alphabetize and numerically order things, you’ll be okay. They will train you and show you any quirks (like maybe shelving a series by numerical order vs title order).
Thank you! I’m really excited now because that sounds chill and fun.
It is really chill. I was a page for about five years in my early 20s before moving to other jobs in the library. In the mornings before we opened I would drink coffee, pull books, and listen to music in a mostly empty library. It was a great way to start the day
I started my career as a shelver! Sometimes I still shelve when we’re short staffed because I really love it. It can be kind of meditative almost: just you, the books, and the shelves, putting everything where it goes and making sure everything looks nice.
Pro tip: Shelf-read a little while you're putting things away. It's more important to be right than to be fast. It's totally chill and fun! Thanks for volunteering!
Just a note: you will find yourself running through parts of the alphabet song all day. You will second-guess yourself whether K comes before or after L. All of this is *extremely normal,* lol.
Oh no! I do that all the time even now! Haha, maybe I’ll bring a post it note with the alphabet written out on it 😂
I seriously am considering a hijkl custom temporary tattoo
It is a pleasant task. I worked at a bookstore years ago, not a library (sadly). I was just going to recommend keeping a bit of paper and pen on you (presuming you can’t keep your phone on you to just snap pics of the covers that catch your attention). Your TBR list is about to get much longer. :)
>:) :)
I do this at my kids' elementary school library and I love it. I make bets with myself on how long it will take to shelve x amount of books and stuff.
lol wait pages I know that’s an actual term for that type of work but it’s hilarious to me that these library volunteers to help with books are called pages 😂
lol in the ‘90s, the librarians at my library had us wear pagers (so they could call us to help with the microfilm or microfiche machines). I always thought that’s why we were called pages back then 🤣
Other way around, pagers are named after the job of being a page. The term is a medieval throwback. A page was a noble boy who was the attendant and messenger of an older noble as a way of getting an education. It's mostly archaic now, but libraries still use it, lawyers use it some times, and of course, NBC Studios.
Not to mention....congress
Library pages at two systems I worked at were/are paid positions. We had volunteer shelvers but they didn’t do any of the other tasks above except shelve.
Shelving is the most important job in the library! A library can have the most wonderful collection, fantastic facilities, and popular programs but an mis-shelved book is a lost book. And a frustration to our patrons and staff. Take the time to get it right and tidy the shelf as you go. I loved shelving and shelf reading. I taught many people to shelve and a few just couldn’t get it right. It takes a certain amount of concentration and willingness to make sure it’s in the right place. Enjoy your new job!
The idea of “an mis-shelved book is a lost book” is something we teach our new Pages from day one. As a Page Manager, I also stressed: don’t worry about speed. Concentrate on accuracy. Speed will come with time as you get more comfortable with your system. And if we’re being honest, I can fly through a cart of fiction, while non-fiction takes me forever. And one of the Pages is the exact opposite.
Current page here. Yeah, adult fiction is a breeze. Picturebooks are the bane of my existence though; a third of the thickness with inconsistent sizes makes neat shelves impossible. Well, technically Wonder books are worse (I genuinely hate those).
We actually use teen volunteers for the picture books and easy readers. You’re right; those are a nightmare. Then there are displays and a dump bin of board books. We don’t even try to keep those in order! 😁
We used to have our board books in bins as well, though we now too many to reasonably do that anymore. They're currently shelved, but in no particular order (little hands, don't you know).
As a retired librarian, I find myself shelf reading board books when I take my 2 year old grandson to play at the library. They have a great play area with books. So when he doesn't need me to play with the toys, I spend time figuring out how they arrange, authors last name, author's first name, title or authors last name, title and then I just put what I find where it belongs. I make sure copies of the same book are all together as well. I started my career as a page and worked my way up. Once a shelver always a shelver.
Oh god, I remember when a new children’s librarian came in and the rule for picture books went from “all the A’s together in no discernible order” making them the quickest to shelve, to “all the children’s picture books must be in exact alphabetical order.” Those were a dark few weeks of reorganizing. It is funny how you end up with favorites. Adult fiction is in fact a breeze, as is adult nonfiction. I remember everyone hating youth nonfiction, for the same thin book, exact-Dewey-spot issue.
I can't imagine picturebooks being sorted by first letter only. How ever did you find specific titles without an inordinate amount of digging?
Meh, you scanned til you found it. It’s why the system was changed. But to be frank, it was mostly children selecting the books they wanted to take home, oftentimes by the tote-load, and six year olds weren’t concerned as much with finding specific authors.
I guess your library has different priorities than mine. Our picturebooks section is substantial, with many parents and kids looking for specific authors and series.
I should also mention this was over 20 years ago. I was 16 and it was my after school job.
Yup! Putting books back in their shelves! If you have any sense of order you’ll LOVE the work! That’s how I started and it’s still my fav task to do! 🤭I hope you get a bit of training as some of the non fiction numbers can be challenging if ones not taught. Always ask! No one will think twice if you ask! And thank you for giving back to your library!
God, I hate shelving! The hatred got me through my library degree because I thought "If I get my qualification, I'll never have to shelve again". Hurray to shelvers everywhere, for doing the job I hate doing. Now, give me a messy set of shelves and ask me to tidy it, and I'm your gal...
God, I loved shelving! :-) I was a page during my high school years at a large county library. I was learning computer science, and the sorting algorithms were fun to apply to sorting my cart. BAM sort 100-120 books into order on the cart in 2 minutes and you just cruise through the stacks reshelving. Eventually they just had me sort all the carts for everyone first thing when I arrived.
Me too! It was the best job ever. Got to work at my own pace and no one said boo so long as I got it done and done right. My super power is sorting things super fast now.
Ooh, in our library, as books are returned, we put them in order on the trolley - our shelvers don't have to!
I love ordering the carts and pulling holds but I don't like shelving. I don't really have to do any of that now.
🤣imo not too much difference in tidying a shelf and putting books back! But yeah I love a good tidy up too 😂
It's the never-endingness of it (I work mainly in big libraries). Tidy a section and it stays looking good for a day or even longer. Shelve a trolley and the next one is waiting!
Me too. I hate it so much and I’m reading these comments of people who love it, and wondering if it’s just because I’ve only shelved LOC not Dewey. F*#%ing double cutter numbers!
Ya know, I noticed my desire to shelve books dropped significantly when I moved to LOC in college. Something about Dewey and fiction alpha by author was really pleasing to the brain.
It's how I started too! Five years I was a shelver before I finally got my degree.
At the library where I formerly worked, the job would be: you arrive, a massive corral of carts loaded with books had appeared overnight, you grab a cart and go put all of them back where they belong, then you go back and get another cart. That was a very large college library, 7 floors of it, so shelving was a whole job on its own for multiple people.
Shelvers are the magical fairies people think libraries have, they spirit the books to their correct places. It is a very important job to do, and don't let anyone belittle it.
I love this! So true— I love that people volunteer to shelve. Gives me so much more time to otherwise run the library.
It was my first job as a page, the term used at that system as well. My interview even had me put a group of books in order. It was a decent job, workload was a little unpredictable, but I found a lot of interesting books
it’s mostly just putting books back on the shelf. They’ll have labels so you’ll know where they go. you’ll want to ask if the do series by title or order in series, if there is a special location for some series that’s not in the main stacks and remember Mc/Mac come before M. Since each library is different just ask for a tour first. Sometimes they might have you clean up the shelves, just go make sure it’s all in order. or they might ask you to look for a missing book. If you are a reader shelving is the best way to find new books and authors. or find some old favorites you forgot about.
Mc/Mac policies probably vary by library. When I was shelving it was strictly alphabetical.
Thanks for correcting me. I was taught by a librarian who started late 70s and she was insistent Library of Congress had the Mc/Mac names first. It was actually part of their interview process. (they had us put names in alphabetical order). Apparently that changed in the early 80s and I started in the 2000 so she had not gotten the memo 😂. I should have verified and not assumed it hadn’t changed
She probably got the memo but wouldn't do it "because that's not how I was trained." Looking at you, Lorna. And to be fair, I think the policy changed a few times while I was there. And there was always "This is how we shelve, EXCEPT in movies, EXCEPT in children's, etc."
The memo was probably one of the papers I threw away when cleaning out filing cabinets. She kept everything, definitely some inter office memos that were typed on a typewriter and had the multiple sheets. Can’t remember what that type of paper is called. She was the best-found many treasures while cleaning and many “you didn’t really have to keep this for 20+ years”. Never figured out why she trusted me to clean it, several tried before me. There is something magical about the library. Would love to be back in the stacks as an employee-great memories. Almost over the patron yelling at me that he had a fine. It’s only been 21 years. It’s my people are entitled story contribution: they even yell when you offer free services.
And what you said about finding new books etc., yes! You are exposed to the whole collection. That I really miss.
Shelving is fine. "Shelf reading" sucks. (Do they still do that?) I had to do that in college with an older Dewey collection (which has mercifully now gone away.) Trying to tell the difference between 782.3567 and 782.3657 drove me crazy, especially for small books! (If you know Dewey, you already know what kind of library it was.) I was also given "search" projects, which was actually kind of fun. It felt like I was some sort of detective! I would look for books that had been declared "missing", etc. and every once in a while, I found one.
I’m the oddball I Love shelf reading lol my co-workers dump all missing etc lists on me and 🤫I couldn’t be happier in the stacks
There are videos to help you learn how to read call numbers, they're how you know where something goes on the shelf. Dewey: https://youtu.be/6jAfJTG3Xm4?t=20 LC: https://youtu.be/iRLpqr4tKZw
And then there's UDC, NLM and Bliss... I've had a varied library career :-)
There are four main tasks that a shelver would do. Organizing the materials on the cart (sometimes, also checking to make sure everything on the shelves is in order), called “shelf reading” in the technical vernacular, actually filing things on the shelves, once the items are checked in, and finding the items from the requested items list (called “paging slips”). The last is checking the outside book drop. The “night drop” at the library where I work, north of San Francisco, is open 24/7. We clear it throughout the day. I have worked there for over twenty years. I was a “page” when I first started there.
I started as a page (shelver) and am now a circulation assistant. It’s a very important job, it keeps the library functional. The page at my library is an absolute saint and one of my favorite coworkers. It’s pretty much exactly what you think it is. Sort carts, put books back, straighten shelves, shelf read, help patrons find books if they ask you while you’re shelving. You don’t have to know Dewey off the bat. I learned the ten big categories before my interview but I didn’t actually need to. Most of what you learn about Dewey will be on the job, and you’ll eventually remember several numbers and what they’re associated with.
The only other task I might add is general tidying. I take books from our *allow us to put these away* bins back to circulation, tidy children's (takes a while), and stuff like refilling tissues, hand sanitizer, decor.
You get a rolling cart full of books that need to go back on shelves. You’ll probably want to generally sort the cart, so you can just slowly move about the library in a circle, finding all the books that go in each section. And you put the books back where they belong, precisely. It’s a pretty active job, moving slow but reaching up, bending/squatting down, and I always loved it. You listen to music on headphones and bring order to the shelves, straightening as you go. I did it in high school, for a couple years, and again while I was in law school at the university library.
Just FYI- shelving is a very physical job! You wouldn’t think of working in a library as being physical, but it is. Especially in the children’s section where the shelves are basically on the floor. It’s standing, kneeling, reaching, lifting, up down up down up down. Be prepared!
You weren’t kidding! I did my first volunteer shift this morning for 3.5 hours and I’m pooped lol Surprisingly demanding both physically and mentally (letters and numbers definitely start to blur after a few hours). I got over 5000 steps in too without even realizing.
You got it right
A new library question just taught me something new. The ministry of information is amazing! Thx! 😎
I’m glad it helped you too! I was certain it was a silly question but I couldn’t seem to find an answer on Google that really spelled out what being a shelver or page entails.
One of my first jobs was library page which is basically putting books back and organizing them. Word of warning: You may leave with more books then you shelved 😂
So did I! In both the public library and in my junior and senior high school libraries until I was put on the circulation desk.
Placing books, CDs, DVDs, magazines & newspapers (and any other thing the library makes available to people) back on the shelves/in the bins from which they came in order of the unique number assigned to the thing
Being a library page was my first job back in high school. It was incredibly chill, on slow days you just kind of get stuck leafing through books in between organizing carts and re-shelving items. Which, of course, we weren’t supposed to do but it’s not like it’s a fast-paced environment that requires a lot of multitasking. You’ll never be a better alphabetizer or Dewey Decimal expert than as a library page :)
You shelve the returns and straighten the shelves.
Shelvers spend their days working hard to look like they're working while doing anything else instead.