Volunteers and Public Libraries

Some of the tensions around volunteer run libraries can be gleaned from the comments on this piece.  I think the points about job substitution and  quality of service are sound ones.  The whole Big Society concept seems to me to be based on the idea that public services are fairly easy to deliver. 

In fact, to do the job adequately volunteer run libraries would need a great deal of support.  The most likely source of that support would be the Council.  Therefore I suspect that Boroughs like Camden, where three volunteer run libraries have been opened, will find that the volunteer libraries actually turn into a drain on the public library service as staff from the Council are pushed to spend time and money propping up the volunteers. 

On a small scale we saw this with the Kensal Rise Library scheme.  The scheme we rejected in April 2011 explicitly wanted public subsidy.  The unsolicited proposal put in subsequently was rejected as the reverter clause had been triggered, and we no longer had any legal say over the building.  However, my view is that the proposal concerned in fact would have ended up costing the Council a great deal of money and time, and I think this is confirmed in that the same group subsequently made two demands that would have cost the Council.  One was for ward working funds to the tune of £60,000 for various building works not included in the original proposal.  The other was that the bookstock actually in the building be left there, which would mean either a reduction in book stock across Brent libraries as a whole, or more spending to replace the books.

Incidentally, it is odd that a number of blogs and newspaper articles seem to take the line that volunteer run libraries will inevitably fail and are even an insult to professional libraries as devaluing their skills (a view I sympathise with), but then blame Brent Council for not supporting a volunteer run library at Kensal Rise.  The well known Public Libraries News blog is just one example of this kind of inconsistency.

I suppose it depends on how seriously you take the comment made by Phil Bradley in the thread I started with:

"This may of course mean that we end up with libraries being closed, with nothing to replace them. Doubtless some people will then criticise various library groups for not fighting to keep libraries open at any cost. I think we need to strongly make the point that - as I've said time and time again - a library without a librarian isn't a library, it's a collection of books. We need to focus on the activities in a library, run by librarians, rather than the artifacts. We don't talk about brain surgeons as people who weild scalpels, we talk about them in terms of saving lives. Librarians help people find jobs, increase literacy, help protect the vulnerable, teach and inspire. Etc. etc. etc."