Research into Volunteer Libraries

The Government has finally decided to some research into whether volunteer libraries work.  Frankly, it is rather late in the day.  As I have pointed out (as have many others) this research has been an obvious gap with now hundreds of volunteer libraries in operation, but no evidence of far they really work.  The patchy evidence I have been able to find suggests that they don't all that much. 

One line that I think really hits the mark is "a small minority of stakeholders reported that, in some cases, their expectations were set low to begin with, raising the question as to whether the performance of CLs is assessed by stakeholders on an equal basis with local authority led libraries."  My suspicion is that it isn't as there is a real incentive for all concerned to big up the performance of volunteer libraries.  The volunteers themselves want to have a sense of achievement, and have to sell a story of success in order to attract support.  The Councils that have gone down this route have no incentive to argue that their policy didn't work. 

Brent unfortunately has the model about which least is known about the "Independent Library" model, where the local authority gives no real support.