On weekdays, high school students can often be seen in the Waterford Public Library after school. While some come for studying, others come to volunteer.

Students from the high school often volunteer at the library in order to complete their LTS hours. According to Jill Adams, a staff member at the library who is in charge of volunteers, students may volunteer at the library because it is a quiet place to complete their hours, or they may like books in general.

The library currently has nine student volunteers, which is about the same as they had last year. Though they also have two adult volunteers, they usually reserve the positions for high school students in need of hours. During the summer, they have as many as fifteen student volunteers, as there are more hours available for students to volunteer.

The library has designed a program to make volunteering like a student’s first job. First, the students must get an application from the library and fill it out. after returning the application, students set up an interview with Adams, which usually lasts 15-20 minutes. After the interview, a schedule is set up, usually one to two days per week. Most volunteers work two hours per day, although on occasion they only work one. Students then participate in training for several of their first days, learning about the various sections of the library and what tasks they will be performing.

The main tasks for volunteers are shelf reading and straightening. Shelf reading is looking at the labels on the books and making sure that they are all in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, or by the Dewey Decimal Number if the book is non-fiction. Straightening is often done when shelf reading or by itself. Straightening is when volunteers make sure that the books are pulled to the edge of the shelf and are not falling over. This is an important task as it keeps the library from looking messy.

Volunteers also complete reports, which are lists of books that volunteers have to look for. There is a list for lost books and one for searching the shelves for certain books. If the books are found, they are taken off the shelf and checked in. However, it is usually rare to find a book on one of the lists. Sometimes, other projects come up that the volunteers help the library staff with. These include putting stickers into dictionaries for the Waterford Rotary Club to give to the elementary school students, indexing the DVDs, and even blowing up balloons for the library’s 90th birthday several years ago.

Some of the tasks in the Children’s Room are different from those in the adult section. Volunteers in the Children’s Room still shelf read and straighten, but they also do other projects such as cutting out and preparing crafts. These crafts can range from cutting out certain shapes to drawing a map from a  picture book on a larger piece of paper for the next storytime event.

Volunteers are beneficial to the library, and benefit from it as well. The volunteers complete tasks that staff members do not have time to do on their own. They help to keep the library neat and enhance the experience of visitors to the library. Without them, no one would be able to find what they are looking for because nothing would be where it is supposed to, and they would have to search the entire library looking for it. Volunteers benefit from the library because it is within walking distance from the school, and is also an easy way to get LTS hours. Two hours once or twice a week might not seem like much, but it adds up quickly. Volunteering at the Waterford Public Library is a great opportunity to complete LTS hours, especially for those who enjoy reading.