When is a volunteer not a volunteer?

There's a very depressing article in The Bookseller which should be read: Lewisham library volunteers on workfare scheme. This is wrong on so many levels I really don't know where to start. The idea of a volunteer is rather in the word itself I would have thought. But apparently not. The “workfare” scheme will cancel peoples benefit payments unless they undertake the work. This is doublespeak that even George Orwell never even considered. Either a job is there - in which case it should be made available to a properly qualified person to apply for, or it's not there, in which case you shouldn't be able to force someone to do it. At a time when an increasingly number of information professionals are losing their jobs this bunch of idiots seem to think that it's a good idea to reduce the opportunities for them to get one. How does that ever make any kind of financial sense, unless you've got such a twisted mind that your fiscal policy works best if you have people out of work, and force them to do jobs that otherwise they'd get paid for. Either that, or you're a supporter of the insane mob we've currently got in power. But apparently, they're not volunteering as such “These placement are young people who have no or little experience, and this is not just work experience, it is also training" says Darren Taylor, c.e.o. Of Eco, the company who have taken control of Sydenham Library, when it was taken out of local authority control. So we've now got a private company making money - the money that the tax payers are paying for a service that they're not actually getting any longer - out of people who are being given no option but to work or starve. How is this right? How is this proper? How is this just?

Moreover - who is training thse people, and what exactly are they being trained to do? I have absolutely no idea, and I suspect that no-one else does either - including the poor souls caught up in this Orwellian nightmare of doublethink. I don't know about you - but if I was being forced into doing a job, I probably wouldn't be too keen on continuing it later on. Most people that I know work in libraries because they want to work in a library - they enjoy dealing with people, helping and assisting them. You can't force or train people into that attitude. This isn't going to help anyone - not the young people themselves, the library members, the taxpayers - the only people that it's going to help are the companies that are making the money.

This has been an entirely insane week in the world of librarianship, with this nonsense following on hard from the ridiculous 'report' produced by the Arts Council, which is a total disgrace. Not for one moment does their report think to question the concept of 'community' run libraries. More double speak as well... any public library is *already* a community library - because it is in a community and for a community. These apologies for libraries either neither 'community' or 'library'. They are a second rate, second grade step towards the obliteration of the library service itself. I would describe the report as a 'joke' but there's really nothing even vaguely humourous in it. It's been designed for one thing, and one thing only as far as I can see - an opportunity for politicians (both local and national) to say 'See? Told you so.' This report will do nothing to propogate libraries - it will do the exact opposite. It is shameful and a disgrace.

Comments

[Christopher Pipe]

To be fair, Mr Taylor claims his company is a not-for-profit organisation that helps the elderly and the unemployed to get onto computers. I can imagine they could do that, though it doesn't mean they're necessarily running what you and I would call a library service.

Totally agree about the "community library" misnomer. It seems to be a fad to call everything "community" and think that'll make people think it's somehow better (than what? a job done properly?).

[Liz]

My friend's daughter has been searching for work since graduating last summer with limited success other than a temp Christmas job. She's applied to Asda three times without getting anywhere as apparently they had no jobs. She's now being sent there on a Workfare placement. Guess what? Yep right, they still have no jobs going. ......

[Diana Nutting]

Well said, Phil

[Alan Wylie]

I totally agree with you Phil on the 'Workfare' issue it's a verry worrying trend creeping into the Public Sector, although i don't know if you can really class the 'eco-libraries' as Public Sector, that's the whole problem the sector is becoming so fragmented! Did you see the comment left by one of his volunteers on the Guardian website a while ago http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/05/library-closures-ed-vaizey?CMP=twt_gu
“Funnily enough, I volunteer at one of the Lewisham branches mentioned so I have some insight into this. While the volunteers, particularly the full-timers, are trying their best, it’s simply impossible to provide a proper service when you rely on a rolling procession of people who have never worked with books and who don’t know about basic library procedures. To make matters worse, the company running the library is cheap enough that they refuse to even fix the toilets, meaning the staff often have to go round the corner to a bar or coffee shop instead. And of course the supply of new books has been effectively stopped with staff unsure whether the books still there will be transferred to other Lewisham libraries or not (because giving council property to a private company would of course be completely unfeasible). If there are less people using the libraries, it’s because the service has deteriorated because of the government’s negligence, not because the customers (many of which are elderly, vulnerable or parents of small children, who live nearby and who can’t feasibly reach another of the borough’s libraries) don’t want a library service.” OttoMaddox (Guardian comment)

[Ferelith Hordon]

Hear, Hear...it not only does a disservice to those for whom it is a career - but it gives genuine volunteering (in circunstances where ity i legitimate and needed) a very bad name.

[Anonymous Librarian]

So "any public library is *already* a community library - because it is in a community and for a community." Surely this is doubel-speak.

'In a community' is geography - many of the new libraries are better situated than their predecssors. 'For a community': as opposed to what? This soundbite is completely meaningless.

Lewisham exists because the old model of services provided by local councils is no longer tenable, financially or democratically.

The new libraries aren't as 'good' in many ways as their predecessors from a professional pov but sometimes and in some ways they are better. The staff involved are much more committed than many of the old council employees - they have to be.

Perhaps we're scared of the possible truth - community libraries won't work because communities don't actually want them enough. People in Lewisham are trying to swim against that tide - good luck to them

[Lewisham Barry]

Alan, do you live in Lewisham? No you do not. So stop telling us what we shold or shouldn't think. Given the scale of cuts visited upon us in this borough there were always going to be less libraries and less librarians. That the council managed to find a way to keep local libraries open is to be praised not criticised, unless of course you think we should have cut other things as well. Maybe we should have kept 11 libraries open and shut Sure Start Centres, or schools, or reduced social services provision? Come on, you've got all the answers so tell us.

[Caryn Wesner-Early]

Anonymous Librarian and Lewisham Barry, your comments would have a lot more credibility if you had given your real names, as most people commenting on this blog do. There is no way to tell if you are affiliated with the private company running this library, so we have no choice but to discount your opinions.

[Alisha]

Maybe Mr. Bradley I can provide you with some insight. I am a volunteer at Eco - a non-profit organisation. I am currently undertaking a Customer Service course and I am hoping to undertake a first aid course. Also, I am being trained in understanding how to quality assure computers and knowing the ins and outs of the software and hardware, something I love! All, may I add, for free!

Initially I was working in the library, but the Darren is flexible so I have been transferred to a department that I feel will help me get on the working ladder.

I think that today, you have to make do with what you have been given. It seems that we want things on a silver platter without doing the hard work for it. Yes, volunteering in a library is not how I envisioned staring working life, but without the experience or qualifications employers want, I've got to start somewhere.