"This is not volunteering, it is blackmail!"
Surrey County's library volunteers speak out
Yesterday we reported on Surrey County Council's last minute reprieve to keep all of its 52 libraries open, with 10 to be run by volunteers as community enterprises.
NewsHound has since heard from SLAM (Surrey Libraries Action Movement), the umbrella organisation for 19 of the Surrey County library Friends Groups, all of them volunteers. Far from being happy with the Council's decision, SLAM claims that volunteers have been coerced into taking over libraries which would otherwise be closed down.
Lee Godfrey, SLAM's Press Ofifcer told us "If a Council threatens to close your library unless a lot of people “volunteer”, then people are being forced to give their time for free, being told they must “volunteer” with a gun to their heads. This is not volunteering, it is blackmail: taking advantage of people’s desire to nurture and protect their local community, and not wanting to lose one of the key hubs of their communities."
SLAM are in support of volunteers working in the County's libraries, but they do not believe that volunteers should be expected to assume full responsibility to run the services and have informed Surrey Council they are not prepared to replace professional librarians.
"We are very aware of the training, professionalism and experience that goes into being a librarian and we are fully appreciative of the service they provide." says Godfrey.
"Librarians are professional people and professionally trained. You wouldn’t ask volunteers to take the place of Doctors, Teachers or Civil Engineers so why would anyone think volunteers can replace librarians just like that?"
SLAM stresses that whilst volunteers can play a valuable role in supporting and enhancing libraries, they do not believe that they can pick up the necessary skills after just a few hours training to run them, and that the proposed move to a volunteer led service will ultimately undermine the quality of libraries.
SLAM also believes that Surrey's insistence on adopting a volunteer model will ultimately defeat the object as volunteers will be unwilling to come forward if their efforts lead to a diminishing of the services they are trying to save.
Ultimately Godfrey is not convinced that a volunteer led library model is sustainable for such an important community asset. "Volunteers come and go, due to life circumstances, and it is not possible to guarantee that volunteers will always be able to fully cover library opening and all of the jobs necessary to keep a library fully functioning. Over time, the service will diminish to such a degree that these libraries will eventually be closed. And this will be one more nail in the coffin of so many villages and local communities."
Lee Godfrey, SLAM's Press Officer: single-handedly downplaying the impact that volunteers can have, one poorly-thought-out soundbite at a time.
"Librarians are professional people and professionally trained. You wouldn’t ask volunteers to take the place of Doctors, Teachers or Civil Engineers so why would anyone think volunteers can replace librarians just like that?"...come along to my local Community House and see how many teachers are giving their time, Lee. Or trundle along to the hospital and witness the positive impact on patient recovery and rehabilitation that volunteers are having.
"Ultimately Godfrey is not convinced that a volunteer led library model is sustainable for such an important community asset. "Volunteers come and go, due to life circumstances, and it is not possible to guarantee that volunteers will always be able to fully cover library opening and all of the jobs necessary to keep a library fully functioning"...So what you're looking for is volunteers that are able to committ to a role for the rest of their natural lives, without exception, to keep the library fully functioning and fully cover library opening?
While this story has attempted to play the "volunteers shouldn't replace paid staff" card, it has come back to bite them horribly. If this is the way SLAM views the contribution of volunteers, I'm amazed they've got as many as 19 volunteer-run libraries.
I kind of get what SLAM is saying but I fear they may become victims of their own terminology.
I guess I am an outsider as an international observer but my comment is this:
I believe the issue should be Government/councils replacing paid staff with volunteers to save money!
I believe SLAM missed the point when they declared
“Librarians are professional people and professionally trained. You wouldn’t ask volunteers to take the place of Doctors, Teachers or Civil Engineers so why would anyone think volunteers can replace librarians just like that?"
In my experience volunteers are often professional people and professionally trained. Are we suggesting otherwise here?
SLAM goes on to state “You wouldn’t ask volunteers to take the place of Doctors, Teachers or Civil Engineers” But often these professionals are called upon to volunteer their time and often do in many nations under many circumstances.
There is a big difference between the notions of “Volunteers Couldn’t do the job” and “Volunteers shouldn’t do the job”
IMHO volunteers can do pretty much anything! So the argument for not having volunteers because they are supplanting paid positions isn’t done any service by saying that they can’t do the job! I don’t think we do volunteers any favors when we utilize emotive language such as “then people are being forced to give their time for free, being told they must “volunteer” with a gun to their heads” How does that make the volunteer who chooses willingly to do such volunteering feel for example?
Sadly in my county those who are committed to the continuation of their library service have already done many surveys amongst their communities and find they are not motivated to give their time for free for various reasons the key ones being number of physically able bodies, funding, travel as we are a rual county and agreement with library services and many areas see a full closure of a service as mentioned in Steve's comment - they saw through the blackmail here and the discussions continue so a word to you all let the libraries know you cannot take up the reins and watch what happens.
Surely everyone still has a choice not to volunteer? I'm not sure the closure of a library is tantamount to having a gun against your head.
To give another slant, how about the following?:
Lee Godfrey, SLAM's Press Officer told us "If a Council threatens to close your library unless a lot of people “volunteer”, then people who are committed to the continuation of this service will be motivated to give their time for free, being inspired to “volunteer” with a ‘steely-eyed’ determination to keep the service running. This is not “volunteering” as we currently know it, it is community engagement: embracing people’s desire to nurture and protect their local community, and not wanting to lose one of the key hubs of their communities, where the existing service-delivery model has made untenable in the current economic climate.”
I'm not suggesting there's a 'right' and 'wrong' here, but that the situations with the libraries will be providing some helpful insight into how the concepts of volunteering and community engagement will be interacting with each other in the short to medium-term.