CPD23 Thing 22 – To Boldly Go….

I'm all behind again with CPD23 so I'm opting for the practical forget the precise order and just catch up whatever way is most convenient for me. As (almost) per Morecambe & Wise - all the right Things, just not necessarily blogged in the right order! Hence here goes Thing 22....

And no I have no idea why the idea of volunteering is triggering images of Star Trek and James T. Kirk in my brain this morning… Apart from the fact it can be a bit of a leap, for all kinds of reasons, a new environment.

Volunteering Has Made Me What I Am Today

The above seems a bit of a full-on statement - but actually on reflecting on this Thing and my experience re, it’s true. See my Thing 10 post on how I came into the world of law librarianship. Back in my student days I volunteered myself to The Royal Faculty of Procurators Library in which I assisted in a small one-off project for over the summer holidays after first year. As a result of that I worked there most of my university holidays as a paid library assistant thereafter (so I didn’t have to work during term), and I went back full-time for about a year after I graduated until I found a graduate professional post also in law a few blocks round the corner.  Fifteen years on I’m still a member, have lots of good friends there, and I haven’t emailed them today for oh…. At least 10 minutes for something….  Fifteen years ago I had no idea what I was getting myself into, no idea what was involved, and it was scary and a huge learning curve. But it set my career course, got a lot of good friends out of it.

Different types of volunteering

The volunteers I most come across these days are the Placement Students I take from the Local Library School annually for about a month.  It’s not a compulsory part of their course, it’s not marked or examined, so they do it because they feel it would be useful experience and help them get that first job in the sector or one at a higher level or in a different area of experience. My firm also takes a fair amount of school placement students doing very short placement periods working in a range of departments but for very short periods of time.  So I get Masters librarianship students for good periods of time, and I get 15yr olds for 3 hrs with little comparative knowledge of libraries. It varies considerably.

A long time ago during my various librarianship courses I was the volunteer on Placement. I had some very good experiences, I also had some bad ones.  I try to ensure that working here is thus a good one.  If nothing else it’s a very good way of keeping up with what’s happening in library education, course syllabuses, and the job market for new graduates.

The Big Question

There’s been a lot of debate in discussing this ‘Thing’ about recession impacts and whether people would be comfortable doing volunteering jobs to keep their hand in in the sector or not if their own job disappeared while they searched for paid work e.g. see #libcampuk11 musings post re. I think it gets back to the concept that volunteers are an additional short-term or short hours over a longer term resource. And they vary hugely in skills, ability, knowledge and confidence.  They need supervision and they need training and the experienced person to go to if things are going awry.  End of the day they’re not being paid for this, you (hopefully!) are, you’re responsible for them and their work.

If it’s going to ensure something gets done that’s nice but would never get up the priority list enough for the paid expert staff to do it then fine. Volunteers get experience and skills, get to try out different contexts and jobs, and hopefully get a lot of enjoyment (or why do it?), the workplace gets ‘x’ that has been bugging them for years actually done. Or if it’s an organisation (e.g. a small voluntary group) that was never going to be able to afford to pay someone anyway so it’s not a case of taking any potential job away.  If it’s job substitution without the pay (whether the volunteer concerned is qualified to do it or not) then it’s a much more difficult decision. And I think it probably comes down to an individual assessment of the exact context allied to the job requirements itself and the personal situation of the individual at that time. A sweeping ‘never’ is a bit grand gesture for a very real and practical conundrum that will face some people.