Volunteers in Public Libraries
Prepared for Representative Donna Sheldon October 26, 2009
Please find below:
I. Excerpts from a literature survey published in 2008
II. Successful volunteer programs in Georgia public libraries
III. Examples of volunteer programs in public libraries in other states
I. Excerpts from a literature survey published in 2008
The following excerpts were taken from a comprehensive review of the literature on the use of volunteers in public libraries by William E. Buchanan:
The many contributions and successes of volunteers in America's public libraries are well documented in the professional literature …What rapidly becomes apparent after reading many of these articles is that, with a few exceptions, volunteers supplement but do not replace the work done by professional librarians and paraprofessionals employed in the nation's rural public libraries. While they do work in libraries helping out with story hour, circulation duties, and so forth, they also serve as advocates, as trustees, as members of ad hoc teams to develop support for bond issues, etc. Repeatedly it was reported that a major positive impact of volunteers was the public relations they engendered by simply being a positive voice within their constituencies on behalf of the local library.
…One of the things that this literature reveals is that the actual spirit of volunteerism, in addition to adding to the workforce available to institutions, creates an atmosphere of good will in the community that acts as a sort of built-in public relations engine.
Whether they are volunteering as individuals to help a library out with a specific task or are volunteering to be a part of an established voluntary organization such as Friends of the Library, the presence of the volunteer on the library's team is important for at least two significant reasons: 1) the actual work that the person accomplishes, e.g., shelving books, presenting a story hour, conducting a tour, staffing a gift shop, etc.; and 2) the public relations impact the volunteers have within the community.
…Sally Gardner Reed (2006) echoes some of these sentiments. "It is hard to imagine running a small library without volunteers.... Volunteers can offer a library even more than their time, as valuable as that is. Your volunteers will have a vested interest in the health and vitality of the library" (p. 137). Reed goes on to note that sometimes volunteers are the most effective messengers when trying to communicate the library's funding needs to governments. While pointing to the many excellent values that volunteers bring to libraries, Reed is careful to emphasize that volunteers are "an auxiliary labor force. That is, volunteers should supplement paid staff; they should not replace them. If you attempt to round out an inadequate workforce with volunteers, you will lose the best bargaining chip you have to get the increased funding you need. No one is going to pay for something they can get for free" (p. 138).
Herbert S. White (1993), distinguished professor in the library school at Indiana University, voiced some of the same appreciations and concerns years earlier in his insightful article, "The Double-Edged Sword of Library Volunteerism" (1993). He argues that the use of volunteers in libraries who are undistinguished from staff and from professionals sends the wrong signal to the public that anyone can work in the library, that it takes no special education or preparation. He suggests that one solution might be to identify by badge or uniform who the volunteers are, much as museums do for docents. This both honors the volunteers as well as allows the public to understand better the roles that volunteers play in the library.
… volunteers played a pivotal role in turning the local community tide in rural Louisville, Colorado, where a bond issue to build a new library was defeated in 2002. In 2003, with the help of volunteers, the library went back to the public and on the second try, the bond issue passed, resulting in the construction of a new 31,000-square-foot, two-story library, which became the biggest building in this rural town of 19,000 residents. Without the help of volunteers, the campaign could not have succeeded, says Bacon, a library trustee and member of the citizen campaign to get the bond issue passed….
Virtually all the literature on volunteerism in libraries emphasizes the appropriate management of the volunteer program to make it work effectively.
The research in this project revealed that volunteerism is a vital part of the life of rural and small libraries and that it contributes to, rather than detracts from, the staffing situation of the libraries in the survey. To a person, the librarians interviewed agreed that volunteers were a vital part of their library operation but did not displace or supplant the libraries' hired work force.
Librarians interviewed all agreed that volunteers were a supplement to the work force in the library and that-in most cases-they performed routine and repetitive duties that needed to be undertaken but did not require the training or skill level of a professional or paraprofessional library employee.
All librarians interviewed agreed that having volunteers available to perform routine and repetitive tasks, to run fundraising campaigns, etc., freed the professional and paraprofessional staff to more effectively use their knowledge, skills, and abilities in pursuing such things as collection development, grant writing, and other tasks that required something other than routine and repetitive efforts.
(from Buchanan, W. E. “Volunteerism in Small and Rural Public Libraries in Pennsylvania.” Bookmobile and Outreach Services, 2008, p. 37-56.)
II. Successful volunteer programs in Georgia public libraries
Athens:
Director Kathie Ames reports that the Athens Regional Library has a successful, well-developed volunteer program with a “cadre of wonderful volunteers, plus a group of community service volunteers who also contribute to our benefit.”
Atlanta:
Director John Szabo writes: “We definitely have a strong, well-developed, successful volunteer program. Some details…
· Over 2000 volunteers in 2008
· 2.5 full-time staff in our Volunteer Services Office
· Annual Volunteer Recognition Program
· Staff serve as a liaison with 23 Friends of the Library groups and work with others to start additional groups
· Manage numerous partnerships with Hands On Atlanta, local businesses and corporations, and non profits for volunteer support
· Manage work-study and volunteer partnerships with local colleges and universities
· Staff are active in GAVA
· Provide advocacy assistance
· Coordinate volunteer activities for library staff
And much more! Margaret Roach is our volunteer services manager and can answer any questions you might have. As you can imagine, we’re extremely proud of the critical role volunteers play at AFPLS!”
Columbus:
Jim Shehy, Volunteer Coordinator for the Chattahoochee V alley Libraries, reports:
The Chattahoochee Valley Libraries encourages volunteering throughout our service area. We offer volunteer opportunities with each library within our system – eight Libraries in all, and within every department from Children’s to Technical Services and everywhere in between. We have a paper application or an electronic application available through our website. All adult volunteers must complete a criminal background check and youth volunteers must have a parental consent form signed. We schedule department orientations throughout the year, first covering the policies and procedures of the Library System and then do an actual hands-on orientation within the department with the volunteer before they can begin.
We have volunteers staffing our Library Store, a used book store founded by the Muscogee County Friends of Libraries. Our Library Store is open seven days a week to offer the public a chance to purchase donated books at reduced prices. Our FOL volunteers also offer two book sales a year to the public. This offers additional project-hours for high school teens and community service volunteers to work an entire weekend to complete any required time they need. The Library volunteer program has also partnered with Columbus State University, offering college work-study positions available to students eligible to work off-campus. We have partnered with the Experience Works programs, enabling learning opportunities of practical work experience and training to our older work population. Volunteer services also partners with some adult educational services, providing a safe and friendly environment for adults learning English as a second language the opportunity to practice their English while volunteering. We take part in the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, and we joined in the Presidential volunteer initiative this year through serve.gov with our FOL book sales. We offer a summer volunteer Teen program but encourage our teens and young volunteers to continue throughout the year working with various departments.
We try to encourage all staff members to recognize and thank our volunteers continually, but we do offer some formal recognition as well. We celebrate National Volunteer Week – this past year thanking our volunteers with a CD of songs about the joys of volunteering and our appreciation of them entitled: Our Volunteers Rock!, we helped our Muscogee County Friends of Libraries celebrate National FOL week with a proclamation from the Mayor, a banner hung in our rotunda, and a different treat daily during the week located near our volunteer sign-in station and in our FOL Library Store (i.e. tootsie rolls – saying “you play an important ROLL in our community; starbursts chews for “our All-Stars!” etc.), and we do an annual Volunteer Appreciation Celebration which includes a small gift, certificates of appreciation, catered lunch, and the presentation of our Volunteer of the Year, and Teen Volunteer of the Year awards. We are extremely proud and very appreciative of our volunteers and the service they provide the community through their work with the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries.
Vidalia:
According to library director Dusty Gres, the Ohoopee Regional Library operates a very successful teen volunteer program during the summer to help with their Summer Reading Program.
III. Examples of volunteer programs in public libraries in other states
Arkansas:
When the Fayetteville Public Library won the Gale/Library Journal 2005 Library of the Year Award, they listed as one of their “secret weapons” their volunteer program, run by a half-time coordinator. “Not only did volunteers handle most of the conversion to RFID, they contribute a huge number of hours to other operations, including the Friends bookstore. All told, volunteers worked 14,697 hours for FPL last year. ‘When you have a strong volunteer program you have a ready-made support group,’ says Schaper [library director], commenting that not only are the volunteers appreciated by the staff, but they build community support, too.”
(as reported by John N. Berry, III, in “Five Steps to Excellence,” Library Journal, June 15, 2005, p. 32-35.)
California:
In 2007 the California State Library began the Transforming life after 50 project, which was designed to inspire library innovation in redefining, creating and delivering services to, and engaging with the state's growing population of baby boomers. More than 45 public libraries participated in this initiative with 24 of them recently receiving grants to implement a strategy or an approach that improves the ways libraries serve and engage boomers in their community. More than half of these grants support innovative volunteer engagement projects. Get involved: powered by your library was developed to help libraries build awareness and capacity to engage not only the growing numbers of boomers ready to serve their communities, but the generations of people following the boomers as well.
(as reported by Stacey Aldrich in “Engaging Baby Boomers and Their Offspring as Volunteers: The Californian Way.” Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, June 2009, p. 89-90.)**********
In a research study with young adult (YA) volunteers at the Oakland (CA) Public Library, Anthony Bernier discusses the following implications for management of a volunteer program:
“First, aside from the resources required to gather sufficient information and develop a training program, volunteer management is a very cost-efficient endeavor in relationship to many other YA programs. Second, a successful program engenders a higher profile within the community for value-added youth opportunities and highlights greater public value for the library in the community. Among the positive dimensions of this heightened community profile are the workplace preparedness and public service opportunities it offers youth. Another positive dimension is the higher profile the library gains in seeking competitive fund development opportunities by demonstrating a legacy of strong intergenerational services. Third, a successful YA volunteer program deploys the most recent innovations in youth development principles, in which youth become participants in an integrative service model rather than simply recipients. Furthermore, if well integrated, a successful YA volunteer program is capable of incorporating youth throughout many or all organizational divisions of an institution as young people observe, job shadow, and mirror professional and paraprofessional staff in their daily duties. And finally, the most recent research on comprehensive youth services reveals that young people and librarians both value volunteer opportunities as among the very most desired offerings-young people value volunteering above such conventional services as Internet access, book talks, author visits, and reference services, among many others.”
(as reported by Anthony Bernier in “Young Adult Volunteering in Public Libraries: Managerial Implications,” Library Leadership & Management, Summer 2009, p. 133-139.)
Idaho: Gale W. Sherman, early childhood librarian at Marshall Public Library, Pocatello, ID, writes, “We re-invented our volunteer program five years ago, when preschool storytime attendance swelled considerably and parents wanted the sessions to have fewer children. While we wanted to accommodate more children, we knew we didn't have enough staff. Our solution was to train parent volunteers. The idea of volunteers in public libraries is hardly new. Historically, many libraries came into existence because of volunteer efforts to garner community support and raise money. But all too often today, volunteers are given only menial tasks. That's a shame, because we have found that with training and support, volunteers can do even that most sacred of children's services tasks--running storytime. Still, we knew that getting to the point where parents could lead storytimes wouldn't be easy. We knew we needed to address recruitment, training, support, evaluation, and how to recognize volunteer accomplishments, so we developed a formal process. Thanks to our parent volunteers, we now serve 40 more kids during each 10-week storytime session than we could if we were to rely solely on library staff. It also guarantees us some small groups in storytimes.”