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.