Public Libraries News on Volunteer Libraries

Public Libraries News, which is an invaluable way of keeping up with public library developments has a short piece on volunteer libraries.  Among other things it shows the enormous growth of these, and the way some authorities have come to depend on them.

"A few of the items this week show how dependent some public library services are on volunteers. North Yorkshire says “acknowledges that without the support of more than 2,000 volunteers and others the service as it exists today would not be possible.”, Oxfordshire open a new branch but say that they will need volunteers to actually run it, and Staffordshire report that they have 1,000 volunteers doing the work that would otherwise keep staff employed to the tune of £1.4m. When library services depend on the unpaid in their thousands to do the work it’s clear to see how things have changed since 2010 when less than ten branches nationwide relied on such generosity."

I have deep reservations about this kind of thing, including quality of service, fairness to volunteers and the whole notion of unpaid working and effective undercutting of the payroll workforce.