A school librarian runs a school's library — its collection, the information-literacy teaching that happens around it and the reading culture it supports.
The American Association of School Librarians made "school librarian" the profession's official title in 2010, though schools also hire under titles like school library media specialist.
At an independent, faith-based or charter school, the job is set school by school: private schools set their own requirements for the librarians they hire, and charter staffing is a question to take to each school and its posting.
This guide covers the work, the credentials and the pay.
What is a school librarian?
A school librarian is the staff member who runs a school's library: building and caring for its collection, teaching students how to find and judge information, and connecting books and research materials to what happens in classrooms.
The work sits between teaching and library science, and this guide treats it as a staff career in its own right rather than an add-on to a teaching job.
The profession settled its name at the national level more than a decade ago.
The American Association of School Librarians' Board of Directors voted on January 16, 2010 to adopt "school librarian" as the official title for the profession.
Titles still in use include school library media specialist, teacher librarian, library information specialist and media coordinator — different names for one profession, and a job hunter needs to search all of them.
AASL describes itself as the only national professional membership organization focused on school librarians.
It is a division of the American Library Association — a relationship in place since January 1, 1951 — and it serves school librarians through 47 state and regional chapters.
Inside a school building, the work concentrates on three audiences at once.
Students get instruction and reading recommendations.
Teachers get materials and research support for their units.
And the collection itself needs ongoing curation to stay matched to the curriculum and the readers actually in the building.
What do librarians do at independent and faith-based schools?
The duties at a private school are the duties the school library exists for, shaped by the school's program, its size and its curriculum.
Five threads run through the work.
- Collection development — choosing, cataloging and weeding books, databases and media so the collection matches the curriculum and the readers in the building.
- Instruction — teaching information literacy and research skills, from scheduled classes with younger grades to project-level support alongside teachers.
- Reading promotion — recommending titles to individual students and running the reading programs that keep a school's reading culture alive.
- Teacher support — pulling materials for units, steering faculty toward primary sources and coordinating research assignments across departments.
- Operations — the circulation desk, the library schedule, the budget and the vendor relationships that keep the collection current.
Size changes the job.
NCES's Private School Universe Survey counted 11,878 of 29,727 U.S. private schools — 40.0% — enrolling fewer than 50 students in 2021-22, with another 27.2% enrolling 50 to 149.
A library in a school that size can be a one-person operation, and the librarian's week can stretch from teaching classes to cataloging to covering the desk alone.
Faith-based schools add a layer of their own: the school teaches a religious curriculum alongside the general one, and a librarian there can expect collection choices and teacher requests to reflect it.
What the school may ask the librarian to hold, credential-wise, is taken up in the section below.
Do charter schools employ librarians?
The honest answer starts with what the data does not say.
Our research did not confirm any source with data on librarian staffing at charter schools, so there is no national count, share or trend we can put in front of you — and this page will not invent one.
That makes the search a per-school exercise: whether a charter school employs a librarian at all, and whether that role is a dedicated library program or library work folded into another position, is a question to take to each school and its posting.
So ask.
Read what a posting actually covers, and interview for the structure: does the school run a dedicated library program, who owns it, and what does the week look like.
The titles to search are the profession's own — school librarian, school library media specialist, teacher librarian, library information specialist and media coordinator, the set AASL lists as in use — and a search built on one title alone can miss the rest.
What do you need (MLS/MLIS vs state endorsement)?
The baseline comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupation profile: BLS says school librarians typically need a bachelor's or master's degree plus a teaching certificate, with requirements varying by state.
BLS adds that public school librarians typically need teacher certification and that some states require a test such as the Praxis Library Media Specialist exam.
Read that as the public-school picture: BLS's own framing is that requirements vary by state.
Private schools set their own requirements for the librarians they hire — one school's list is not a rule for the next — and where state rules do reach private schools, they vary by state and can depend on the school's category.
The degree names at the center of this question are the Master of Library Science (MLS) and the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS).
Our research did not find a source that quantifies how many private school librarian postings ask for one, so treat the degree question as school-specific rather than settled.
At Christian schools, an association credential can sit alongside whatever the school asks for.
ACSI — the Association of Christian Schools International — offers a Specialist Teacher certificate covering subject areas including Library/Media for Christian school teachers in K-12.
It is the association's own credential, not a state certificate.
Credential questions are school-by-school questions
How much do school librarians make?
Two sources cover librarian pay, BLS and NAIS, and each figure needs its own careful label.
The first is federal.
BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook reports a 2025 median pay of $68,270 per year for librarians and library media specialists across all settings and employers combined.
The handbook's industry detail puts the May 2025 median in local public elementary and secondary schools at $74,710.
BLS's separate series for privately owned elementary and secondary schools only puts the May 2025 median for librarians and media collections specialists (SOC 25-4022) at $59,460.
Each figure is its own BLS series, and none is the salary at any one independent school.
The second source is NAIS, whose salary data describes NAIS member schools only.
At NAIS member schools in 2025-26, library/media staff salaries had a median low of $65,100 and a median high of $79,275.
Those are medians across reporting member schools — NAIS members, not the field at large.
For negotiating, look for the school's own number: a published salary scale or a posted range is that employer's figure for its own year.
It is evidence in a conversation, never an industry average.
Find school librarian jobs
The titles to search are the profession's own: school librarian, school library media specialist, teacher librarian, library information specialist and media coordinator.
Two schools can name the same job differently, so search the full set rather than one title.
Listings on this site are private and charter school listings — independent day and boarding schools, Catholic, Christian and Jewish day schools, Montessori, classical and Waldorf schools, and charter schools and networks.
The direct route in is the listing page: browse school librarian jobs to see what is open at private and charter schools.
On the employer side, a school planning a library hire can start from the site's hiring hub for faculty and staff hiring.
This page is career information, not legal or licensing advice. Credential expectations vary by state and school — confirm them with each school, and for state endorsements and exams with your state education agency.