Library Vibe Squad: Bringing Student Voice into Your Space with a Library Leadership Team
Want to bring more student voice into your library space? Start a library leadership team! Our Library Leadership Team, also known as the Library Vibe Squad, is made up of a group of students in middle school and high school who meet twice a month to help plan programs, displays, outreach events and just generally work to make the library more awesome. In this session, I’ll share about the process of getting started, forming a team, planning meetings, divvying up responsibilities and allowing space for more student voice. We’ll talk about strategies for forming a leadership team at your school, what road bumps you might run into, and how to give your students the leadership reigns. I’ll also share about future ideas for our library leadership program and talk about the work my students have done since we started. We’ll also get the student perspective with testimonials from my students on their experiences in library leadership. Whether you already have a thriving student assistant program or are just dipping your toes into having a student library board, there will be something for you here.
Resources
- Our Resources Site from our AASL 2023 poster session – This resources page was created to accompany our IdeaLab presentation at AASL 23 in Tampa
- Library Leaders Info Hub DEMO site – This is the demo version of the site I created to communicate information and provide resources to my library leaders. I created it in Google Sites, but you could also likely do something similar through your school management system.
- 20+ Ideas for Awesome Instagram Posts
Tools we Use
- Canva – We use Canva constantly for library displays and signage. Their Canva for Educators account is free!
- Melissa Corey’s Visual Booklists – We use Melissa’s templates to create book recommendations at our checkout desk.
- Planoly (<-Affiliate link) – We use the paid version of Planoly so that students on the social media team can submit content and write captions for our library Instagram (@TPrepLibrary) which Mrs. Rendina can then schedule and approve. Free version works great too.
More resources
- Library Instagram: @TPrepLibrary
- Library TikTok: @TPrepLibrary
- Wooden bookstands from TheBookstand.net
- Library Leaders t-shirts were ordered custom from Keen Bee Studio
- YA by the Bay – Local event with authors and writing workshops
- School Librarians United Podcast Episodes
- Episode 201: Library Science Students – Listening to this fantastic episode with Katie McNamara was inspiring and helped give me the push to create a Library Leadership program. I hope to one day have a class like hers as well.
- AASL 23 Episode – My Library Leader students are interviewed from minutes 7-12!
- Library Ambassador Programs – slides from Karina Q & Amanda Hunt’s presentation at AASL 23, which inspired the section on Standards connections.