Best Information on the Net will no longer be accessible at the old address. From now on, please access it at http://www.sau.edu/bestinfo/.
**************
LIBRARY VOLUNTEERS: NO DREAM TEAM
by Paul Wiener, Special Services Librarian, Melville Library, SUNY at Stony Brook, NY
Because librarians work so intensively with information, rules and details, many think that all questions have answers, or that all problems need answers. The use of volunteer workers in libraries goes back many decades and is part of an honorable tradition of selfless generosity. Unfortunately, it is, I believe, harmful to librarians and indirectly to libraries in a way that is very similar to the way paid students and paraprofessionals "help" with reference work.
No one should fault those who volunteer to work in libraries. Many retirees, former librarians, senior citizens, teenagers and other adventurers offer their services free of charge out of sheer love of the work, or out of a need to keep busy. These people are looking out for their physical and mental health, and libraries provide excellent gymnasia for moral exemplars.
Likewise, who could fault library administrators beleaguered by rising operating and materials budgets, shrinking personnel budgets, unions, contracts or lazy civil servants for taking advantage of a fabulous, motivated free resource - unpaid (or minimally paid) volunteer workers who want to be at their job. It only makes sense, right? Library hours can be extended, service areas staffed, processing speeded up, public relations and community spirit improved because these volunteers are there!
It is all true........and yet. While these things are true, most of today's "real" librarians - the professional MLS's - concerned about their job and social status, salaries and benefits, career opportunities and working conditions - and with maintaining the sense of "professionalism" library schools instill, whatever that is - complain almost routinely that they are not recognized for what they know or do, or for what they try to change or improve, or for their social skills, for their place in history, for their contributions to scholarship, for their education or teaching skills - for their very dedication to a traditionally selfless occupation. An undercurrent of resentment - at not being praised for being humble - runs through many librarians who nevertheless depend on NON-professionals to maintain their image, their workplace, their practises and expertise. Is something peculiar going on here? And can anything be done about this apparent paradox: of needing those whose presence necessarily diminishes the status, and perhaps the purpose, of their supervisors (though few on either side will admit it)?
When the public - users of all populations - can get adequate library help from non-professionals it becomes nearly impossible to make a case for the need for high-status professional librarians to be present on the front lines of public, or patron-interactive, service. The nonprofessionals are often mistaken for librarians, and while in many cases this may enhance our reputations, thanks to the excellent work they do, it does nothing to improve the job market, salaries or create a demand for information specialists among librarians. The same can be, and has been, said about the contributions of nurses to doctors and medical treatment, and of paralegals to lawyers and law. But while legal and medical paraprofessionals (most nurses and paralegals are now considered professionals in their own right) require advanced training and licensing, in order to be responsibly employed, library paraprofessionals do not. Indeed, it would surprise many people that professional librarians need postgraduate education and a degree.
Should library paraprofessionals be required to undergo advanced education, any more than volunteers or students workers are? I don't think so. It's getting harder even to justify some of the professional librray education that is required. Since much of professional librarianship is now concerned with the management of technical, legal, systems, financial and procedural matters; since knowledge of the internet will become a skill common to all, used, ignored or abused much like reading is; and since advanced information research skills will increasingly become the work of computer specialists employed in places and in ways that reward them more than libraries can and do, the identity and the value of the common professional public service librarian is in great danger, despite the desperate predictions of some library educators and prophets. If this common professional librarian is to retain any of his/her status and marketability, and if the library is to benefit from his or her skills, expertise and commitment, he/she does not need to compete with workers who fill our hours, responsibilities and places with volunteer skills we've paid to acquire, to brag about, or at least to certify are present.
Having said that, I believe it is unlikely that this situation will change, or that it can be resolved in favor of librarians. It is one of many realities we will have to live with, and our living with it will simply become part of our great tradition of librarian accommodation - to being ignored, misrepresented, underpaid and taken for granted.
In fact, that so many libraries are able to function well with so many volunteers and students argues that probably fewer professional librarians are actually needed to run a library. As big-hearted as many profesionals fancy themselves, though, few like being displaced by their subordinates. I doubt that many library users will suffer seriously, or that highly motivated librarians will stay unemployed, or that any important collections will be neglected. It just may end up being the case that the only real librarians are what they used to be - those willing to call themselves librarians - and those lucky enough to be so called.
**************
A REACTION
My only real question about this article is whether its premise -- that volunteers are used to do professional work, such as reference -- is true. It seems to me that the obvious place to use volunteers is in the kind of work we never have time to do, the things that are always and forever at the bottom of our piles of work to be done. How many of us are chronically behind in indexing our local newspapers, checking links on our web page, looking for lost books and checking to see if they are still in print, maintaining clippings files on local businesses and government, and such?
We could also draw on volunteers for their unique expertise: those with internet searching skills, for instance, could staff an internet help desk when we might not have time to, or wander around assisting computer users on other floors. Or we could enlist volunteers to help us develop our collections in their subject specialties.
When someone from the community works with us, they come to understand our goals and methods, and can relay that knowledge back to the community, which can constitute invaluable PR.
But I would have great reservations about having volunteers perform reference, or circulation or cataloging, because these not only require technical knowledge, but an understanding of and commitment to our own library policies and the ethics of our profession. I would not like them to be on the firing line when a reporter asks them what a suspected felon checked out from our library, or when a patron demands that we remove a dirty book from our collection, or when a local author asks why we've put his book in our library book sale. At least, not unless we've spent a whole lot of time training them -- which kind of negates the timesaving value of volunteers, doesn't it?
**************
COOL QUOTE
The world is full of willing people. Some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
Robert Frost
**************
You are welcome to copy and distribute or e-mail any of my own articles (but not those by my guest writers) as long as you retain this copyright statement:
Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999.
