Volunteers in libraries

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/wimbledonnews/8931948.Volunteers_sign_up_to_fill_void_of_library_cuts/

Well, what to make of this?
There's been a lot of talk about using volunteers in libraries to prevent opening restrictions or closures. Where you have a populace of retired professionals who are keen to learn the complexities of running a library and can commit long-term, I can see them supplementing a poorly-funded public library quite well.

However, where there aren't those sorts of people, the library service is buggered. And I'm just a little peed off with the assumption that library staff can be easily replaced by people with a minimum of training. How flattering.
Aside from the plethora of tasks like bib, inter-library loans, cataloguing, bookings, displays, deliveries, rotas, events, etc which library workers manage with a lot of intensive training, there's the real stuff: knowing where to find information, making sense of what you find, showing customers how to find stuff for themselves. Librarians learn a great deal about many different subjects and, like good philosophers, make connections between them and be able to find just the right book or internet site which is unbiased, well-written, authoritative and even-handed. Volunteer that, Cameron.

Libraries - state of debate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12340505

Good article comparing libraries and the internet.  The pro-internet argument is a bit more considered than the usual paean of praise offered to Wikipedia:  and actually librarians, to campaign effectively, need to act on the negative stuff.


To be honest, so many people don't use the internet effectively, and those that do - for example, some college and university students - have had their education helped along by a library (even if they didn't realise their J-STOR or Infotrac access was being provided by the library!).

Here's an example:  all of the people I've done a workshop with this week didn't know what the 'more' tab on the Google front page did........

The system works at Blackpool Libraries

The system works at Blackpool Libraries

Excellent customer service - I recommend......

....Layton Library.  Chris runs a brilliant book club there - the members unfailingly select some top reads, so consider joining.  Their Book of the Year is 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett - it's had rave reviews on Amazon as well....  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Kathryn-Stockett/dp/0141039280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299536612&sr=8-1

Here's a vignette of Layton Library:  a boy from a local school who would have been promptly ignored or thrown out of anywhere else discussed his book choices with ease and familiarity, and talked to the staff as if he were right at home.  Such graciousness is scarcely to be found elsewhere.

Libraries Are Everything

How do we know we're civilised?  Because we pool our knowledge of the world in repositories called libraries.  Because we make these places available to everyone, not just the well-off.  Because we put libraries at the heart of communities like Bispham, Grange Park and South Shore.  They're not called "the poor person's university" for nothing.

We also put libraries at the heart of our biggest institutions:  the House of Commons Library is where all major statements and parliamentary answers are stored and made available:  MPs frequently mention the Commons Library in debates. 

Universities, colleges, law firms, the NHS, government departments, schools, churches, rest homes, village pubs, hospitals, societies:  all of these have libraries of one sort or another.

And we'll know just how civilised we are at the end of the cuts the Government is making when the last best hope of a calm, civilised and educated society is whipped away just when you weren't looking.  Sure, spend the money on old people's services - but what's a life if having the bare essentials is supposed to be enough?

Sucks to be us right now!