PS I started a new thread with a deliberately provocative subject because by now everyone is probably pretty fed up with the debate about whether John Dolan should contribute to this forum and most people are
probably just deleting the posts!
From: Library and Information Professionals
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Penny Bailey
Sent: 30 October 2013 11:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Volunteers are a good idea
Recognise that volunteers can enhance your service. Accept that volunteers can provide a layer of service that paid staff may not be able to provide – a listening ear for example – but not that they could do the
core function of running the library service. Do not accept that libraries should be
entirely staffed by volunteers.
The questions I would add to the debate (about attending the conferences) is:
What skills distinguish a professional librarian from a volunteer? What skills do paid library staff need? What tasks should volunteers be doing?
Surely librarians need to be at this conference to ensure that a framework to identify tasks that can be done by volunteers and those that should be carried out by paid librarians is created. A framework which would provide a benchmark
or standard could be used by library managers to defend their staff resources and make the argument for only utilising volunteers for non-core tasks. For example in hospitals volunteers do not provide medical advice, perform surgery, staff the wards, etc they
make cups of tea, talk to patients, run errands for them, etc.
This is my perspective of the downgrading of staff in libraries as a LMS system vendor:
I regularly get requests for library management systems that can provide “user friendly” interfaces that can be used by volunteers (who are not library trained) to help them do MARC cataloguing! Or I am asked to train non-library staff
(in an hour sometimes!) who then ask me “where do these numbers come from?” – they mean classification numbers which they expect to be able to download for free from the internet. I inwardly sigh and think how long we spent on library school learning about
classification or sometimes I actually say out loud, “Oh it took months to learn about classification at library school I couldn’t possible cover it in this session! Don’t you have a librarian?”
Apparently technology is the answer and it’s all available for free on the internet. I sometimes politely point that cataloguing, subjecting indexing and classification are professional tasks needing a professionally trained librarian.
And yes you can download catalogue records but you could get different classification numbers from different schema if your records come from a variety of sources. Or even if they were from the same source and same schema the facet emphasis may not agree with
your collection, etc, etc …
These specifications sometimes come from the library staff – either they have lost the battle a long time ago or they genuinely don’t recognise our core skills as professional tasks – these skills are often referred to as “library admin”.
Time and time again I have seen the library downgraded as ‘admin’ or redundant altogether, only to see it resurface a couple of years later. A professionally set up library will tick along for a while without its library staff but after time the cracks start
to show.
Will we see a turnaround in a few years when someone has the bright idea of setting up ‘resource centres’ that are properly managed by professional staff? I live in hope.
All the best,
Penny Bailey BA, Dip. Lib, MCLIP, MIoD, FRSA
Managing Director
Bailey Solutions Ltd
Tel: +44 (0)1273 773788
Email:
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Web:
www.baileysolutions.co.uk
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