Scheduling your library shouldn't eat your week
Kickstool is a web-based scheduler built for public libraries. Schedule staff. Volunteers. Time off. Shifts. All with a live “who's on the desk today” board you can update from your phone.
Free to pilot · No desktop install · Export your data anytime
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You earned a master's in library science. Not a master's in scheduling management. Yet here you are: rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month, tied to the one machine that can edit it, fielding a steady drip of “wait, am I working Thursday?” all week.
Build the whole week on one screen.
Not a dated spreadsheet you have to decode. People down the side, the week across the top, every shift in its place. Flip to Service points to read the same week by desk — and spot the desks nobody's covering yet.
The parts you'll feel in week one.
A few things that turn the monthly spreadsheet rebuild into a few minutes on your phone.
Run the schedule from your phone
The whole tool is a real web app, not a desktop program with a read-only website bolted on. Check who's on the desk right now, move a shift, or approve time off from your car or a conference hotel. Everyone sees the change instantly.
- No install. Works on any phone, tablet, or browser.
- Today's board, live, with who's on right now
- Edits go live the moment you save
Their shifts, in the calendar they already use
Everyone subscribes once and their shifts land in Google or Apple Calendar, and the feed keeps itself current as the schedule changes. No app to open, no screenshot to text around. And when the whole schedule needs to be out in the open, share one read-only link: post it in the staff room, send it to a partner org, hand it to a sub. No login required.
- Subscribe once. Shifts sync to Google & Apple Calendar.
- Changes show up automatically, never a stale copy
- Share a read-only schedule link, branded and printable
- Rotate any link anytime if it travels too far
9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Information Desk
2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Circulation
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Children's
kickstool.com/s/…Build the week once. It repeats itself.
Lay out your recurring pattern a single time. It repeats on the cadence you set: weekly, every other week, or monthly. It skips the days you're closed, and lets you tweak any single shift as a one-off, so you're never re-typing the schedule every month.
- Daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly patterns
- Skips the days you mark closed
- Edit any single shift without breaking future patterns
Repeats
Every other Tuesday, 9–1 · skips closures · until Aug 30
Split a day across desks by dragging, not typing
One person rarely sits at one desk all day. Maybe it's the Info Desk until noon, Shelving until two, then an outreach visit. Lay the whole shift on a single bar: each block is a desk, drag it to move, pull an edge to resize. It snaps to clean fifteen-minute marks, so you skip the stack of start-and-end dropdowns.
- Drag colored blocks to move them, pull the edges to resize
- Overlaps stack into their own lanes and turn red, so no one's booked at two desks at once
- "Add desk" adds the next unused desk and finds it an open slot
- "Even split" divides the shift evenly across every desk in one click
Info Desk
9a–12p
Shelving
12–2p
Outreach
2–5p
Drag a block to move it, or its edges to resize. Snaps to 15 minutes.
See what's covered at a glance
Tell us how many people each desk needs. Every desk reads green, amber, or red the moment you look: covered, thin, or empty — down to the hour, so a desk that's only staffed until 1:30 doesn't pass as covered. And every gap is a button: click it and the shift form opens with the desk and hours filled in, plus a list of who's actually free.
- Per-desk, per-hour coverage: covered, understaffed, uncovered
- Click a gap to fill it — desk and times arrive pre-filled
- Warns on double-bookings, PTO conflicts, and training mismatches
Reference Desk is unstaffed
Saturday · 2:00–5:00 PM
The volunteer hours your board keeps asking for
Hours by person, by assignment, PTO used, and total volunteer time. The figures grant applications and trustee meetings always seem to need. Export to CSV in a couple of clicks.
- Volunteer and staff hour totals
- Break down by person, assignment, or date range
- Export everything to CSV anytime. No data trapped.
Everything your library needs. Nothing it doesn't.
Modeled on how libraries actually run: service points, volunteers, outreach, and the recurring rhythm of an open week.
Today, at a glance
One calm board, and the whole day is already clear: who's in, where they are, what they're doing. It updates live the moment anyone changes the schedule. No more "who's on the desk?" texts.
Recurring shift management
Build your pattern once: weekly, every other week, or monthly. It repeats automatically, skips the days you mark closed, and lets you tweak individual shifts without disturbing the pattern. The monthly re-type is gone.
Service points & assignments
Info Desk, Shelving, Cataloging, Outreach. Your categories, fully editable. Split a shift into blocks, put two people on one desk, add a note like "Homebound visit." The schedule finally matches how your library actually runs.
Staff and volunteers together
Schedule volunteers exactly like paid staff, or drop them in for a single Saturday. Volunteers never count toward a paid seat. People who'll never log in can still be scheduled.
Time off & travel
Mark PTO, sick days, and conference travel, full day or half. Staff request from their phone. You approve with a tap. We warn you before anyone gets double-booked.
Coverage gaps, flagged and filled
Tell us a desk needs coverage during open hours and we'll flag the gap before it becomes an empty Info Desk on a Saturday afternoon. Then click the gap: the shift form opens with the desk and hours already set, and shows you who's free.
Change notifications
When you move someone's shift from across town, they get an email. When you approve time off, the request closes itself. Everyone stays in the loop without a group text.
Grant-ready reports
Volunteer hours, staff hours, hours by assignment, PTO used. Export to CSV in seconds. The numbers your board and grant reports always seem to need.
Your data, always yours
Export everything to CSV in one download, anytime. A login for each person, with the access that fits their role. No desktop to lose, nothing to lock you in.
A real upgrade from the desktop days.
If your current tool only lets staff look at the schedule online, you already know the difference this makes.
Up and running this afternoon.
Four steps from a blank page to a live schedule your whole team can see.
- 1
Add your people
Bring in staff and volunteers. Paste your roster, or add them one by one. Invite a few admins so you're not the only one who can edit.
- 2
Set your service points
Name the desks and jobs your library actually runs: Info Desk, Shelving, Outreach. Mark which ones need coverage during open hours.
- 3
Build the week once
Lay out your recurring shifts. They repeat on their own and skip the days you're closed. No re-typing the schedule every month.
- 4
Everyone sees today, live
Staff and volunteers open today's board on any phone or browser. You update it from anywhere. The change shows up instantly.
Made for the way libraries actually work.
Not a generic shift app with “library” in the name. The details that matter to a public library are built in.
Volunteers are first-class
Volunteers are scheduled like staff, reported like staff. Free of seat charges.
Closures skip themselves
Mark Thanksgiving or a staff-development day closed, and recurring shifts won't generate work no one's doing.
Reports your board asks for
Volunteer hours and assignment breakdowns, exportable for grants and trustee meetings.
Roles that fit a small team
Admins can edit. Everyone else views and self-serves. No one accidentally rewrites Tuesday.
One flat price per branch. Not per person.
No per-seat math, no surprise bill as your volunteer list grows. Pilot it free, then a single, predictable price per branch. Staff and volunteers always included. Most libraries run one branch and pay one flat rate.
- No per-seat charges
- Volunteers included, free
- Recurring shifts & closures
- Time off, coverage & notifications
- Grant-ready reports & CSV export
- Mobile, with full data export
Questions directors actually ask.
- We're not a technical team. Is it hard to set up?
- Setup is simple. A guided setup walks you through adding people and service points. Paste in your roster to start. You can have a real week scheduled the same afternoon.
- Will my staff and volunteers be able to figure it out?
- Yes. They open a link, see their own schedule, sync it to their phone calendar, and request time off, all from their phone. No training, no manual. Volunteers who'll never log in don't need an account at all. You schedule them, they show up.
- Can I really edit the schedule from my phone?
- Yes. This is a true web app, not a desktop program with a read-only website bolted on. Most of the heavy lifting still tends to happen on a desktop, with the phone there for in-the-moment tweaks. Either way, staff see the change instantly.
- Can people see the schedule without logging in?
- Two ways. Each person can subscribe their own shifts to Google or Apple Calendar — they sign in once to copy their personal calendar link, and from then on their shifts show up on their phone and stay up to date without logging in again. And you can share one read-only link to the whole schedule, branded and printable (and even shareable via QR code), for the staff-room board or a partner org — anyone with that link can view it with no account at all. You can rotate either link anytime.
- Can volunteers use it, and do they cost extra?
- Volunteers are scheduled exactly like staff. They never count toward a paid seat. They can have their own login for self-service, or be scheduled without ever logging in. Your call, per person.
- What happens to our recurring schedule?
- You build it once and it repeats automatically. It skips the days you mark as closed, and any single shift can be edited as a one-off.
- Does it build the schedule for me automatically?
- There's no black-box auto-scheduler, and that's deliberate — most libraries want a person deciding who's where. Instead, Kickstool makes that person fast: recurring patterns build the week on their own, every uncovered desk hour becomes a button that opens a shift form with the desk and times already filled in, and the people list sorts itself to who's actually free — and trained — for that window. You make the calls; Kickstool does the cross-referencing.
- Does it track hours worked or run payroll?
- Kickstool builds the schedule and exports scheduled hours per person; pair it with your existing payroll or time-clock system. We don't try to be a punch clock. Keeping scheduling focused is what keeps it simple.
- Can we get volunteer hours for grant and board reports?
- Yes. Export volunteer hours, staff hours, hours by assignment type, and PTO used to CSV whenever you need them. The totals grant applications and boards keep asking for.
- We have more than one branch. Does that work?
- Yes. Each branch has its own desks, service points, and coverage rules. You manage them all in one place.
- What if we decide to leave?
- Export all of your data anytime. No lock-in. It's backed up automatically, and it belongs to your library, not us.
Get your week back from the schedule.
Set up your library this afternoon. Pilot it free, schedule a real week, and take back the hours the schedule keeps stealing.
Free to pilot. Set up this afternoon. Export your data anytime.