would you volunteer to keep your library open?

[carriedababi]

?

I don't think that popularity is a measure of intrinsic worth. I do however think that given that no bugger actually uses the massive resource that you see the libraries as being, it is a complete waste of money to continue to fund and subsidise the service so that the one individual you make reference to Wook can become literate. If I'm not mistaken, there are other provisions in place to develop literacy rather than a local, rural library where usage is down to 4 lendings a week.

No I wouldnt, I dont use it

Yes.

No, I work f/t and couldn't spare anymore time. But I would be furious if our library shut. I could maybe manage the odd couple of hours here and there but no commit to something every week.

However I would feel like a scab. It wouldn't be fair on the people who would lose their jobs. I would be angry if someone agreed to do my job for free, thereby allowing the government to sack me.

No I wouldn't. The chief executive of our council is paid over 200k a year, get rid of him and they could afford to pay for the library.

If libraries did not yet exist and had just been invented, then Yes.

But I will not collude in making people redundant, so in current circumstances, No.

If we need Libraries, then we need people to run them. If we need people to run them, then they should be paid. Seems a no-brainer to me.

No. I am a librarian. Most teachers wouldn't volunteer to teach.

Already, over 40% of the population volunteers. I do wonder where this army of volunteers is going to materialise from. The Thatcherite Tories created the me me me society and now this lot want to just pretend it didn't happen and expect previously paid - and some skilled - jobs to be done by volunteers. Doesn't anyone have mortgages and rent and bills to pay?

While we're on the subject, who wants to volunteer to look after my severely disabled, doubly incontinent, autistic, frequently violent teenage son? I expect that the library will be more popular....

What with work and children, I would be unable to commit myself to any one time. And I think that would be a problem with relying too much on volunteers: you'd end up with libraries that might be open at a certain time, but then again might not.

And as dh is just going to get a 10% pay cut (council worker) I really do need to spend longer hours on paid work if I can get it.

thing is people aren't redundanet the job is so if the job is redundent then it is illegal to put a volunteer in doing that very same job

I think that everyone who voted Tory in the last election should volunteer immediately.

The rest of us who a) didn't vote for these monkeys and b) already volunteer, should just kick back and let the Big Society take over. I have been volunteering for years and this Government makes me feel less inclined to continue

ivykaty, as far as I know, employment law states that if you ask volunteers to do certain tasks, they can argue that they are doing a job that should be paid. They can legally demand wages and back pay if you as a volunteer co-ordinator aren't extremely careful

Library visits are up where I work; they are still going to close more than half the branches.
It's not about the numbers it's the government cutting the local authority's grants.

It's also about councils choosing highly visible services to cut so as to embarrass the government, while more often than not keeping their 200k a year CEO salaries and gold aged pensions.

*plated, not aged. Damn autocorrect.

I'd say no, only because I don't want paid, qualified, experienced staff to lose their jobs.

But if it came to the local librarians losing their jobs anyway and the library potentially closing if there were no volunteers then, yes I would help out.

OTheHugeManatee you have a point-it confuses me that libraries are targeted disproportionately when they are so cheap(about 1-2% of council's total budget)and used by such a wide spectrum of people.

It occurred to me that there might be an aspect of wanting to cause public outcry. On reflection though I think not, as the council here is Tory, it's probably more to do with not cutting social care and so on.

I would have thought that libraries are targetted because they are not essential services.

Given the choice between cutting things like respite services for Alzheimer's sufferers or libraries, councils are making absolutely the right decision to cut the latter. This is where council's are at - desperate choices - but they have to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Libraries are lovely and I don't want them to close, but noone dies - or requires even more costly intervention - if they are shut down.

I stopped using public libraries when they started turfing out all the old, interesting stock and replaced it with shiny, contemporary items slightly out of date compared to bookshops, but not old enough to be truly exciting. I feel quite left out of the loop, atcually. Do I want to run one? Although I had a part-time job as a library assistant once, I think perhaps not. The soul's gone out of them and they are more about feeding large print Georgette Heyer novels to pensioners and less about knowledge. So no longer my thang, as they say.

Our village library is in danger of closing.

I have a small and futile dream of taking it over and turning it into a coffee shop (it's very small) where people can come, read books, borrow the ones they want, bring them back, eat cake etc.

But old people would not be allowed to use the internet :o

Essential services are being cut in many areas as well.

The sad thing is closing a women's refuge or youth centre won't actually save any money. If there is nowhere to go, so there will be a bigger spend on social services, the NHS and the police.

I believe in people being involved in their local community- not just doing formal volunteering but taking an interest in an elderly neighbour, not dropping litter and dog fouling, and generally being a socially responsible human being!

The time to incentivise more volunteering and to encourage communities to be more cohesive is in good economic times, not when people are stressed out, depressed and feaful of losing their job, if indeed they still have one.

Blankstare I think you are onto something there. Some libraries already do have coffee shops which subsidise them. Some are run from the village pub! I'm sure there are other ways of some libraries making money so they become self-funding.

I'm sure I read somewhere that for many libraries, the books could reach the borrowers much more cheaply on a LoveFilm model, by being sent and returned by post.

What would people think about that?

If it meant keeping my library open, yes of course I would!

I would not want to receive my books by post - I like going to the library.

I have worked in a place where the library was one of the few places to go in the lunch hour. You always seemed to see the same people there; vaguely eccentric looking types; lots of elderly people. Worryingly, you saw a lot of elderly people during Winter, particularly during very cold weather. maybe saving on heating? There were also some people with rucksacks, who were presumably drifting between homeless shelters or YMCAs. This was a very affluent area of West London, by the way.

So the Love Film idea doesn't really work in this context. It's a warm place where the staff are welcoming, and lonely people get some social interaction.

As to volunteering, I would prefer my library to be manned by professionals who are paid, but I would be prepared to volunteer as a last resort. Unfortunately, I would be one of the evening and weekends squad, like the majority.