Save your local! Should volunteers help keep our public libraries open?

Readers checking a book out of the village library might not immediately notice much of a difference, but Congresbury is the latest public library to haven been handed over “to the community”. You may be used to libraries being run by volunteers – maybe your local is – but this structure is relatively new. Over the last decade, as many libraries began closing across the UK due to swingeing cuts to local authority funding by central government – 121 libraries closed last year alone – some have instead been handed over by councils to the community to run.

Since librarian Ian Anstice began charting the cuts to UK libraries on his campaigning website Public Libraries News in 2010, 500 of the UK’s 3,850 remaining libraries have now been taken over, at least in part, by volunteers. “I’ve been looking at the count going up steadily for the last few years,” says Anstice. “In 2010, there were a handful – perhaps 10 in the whole country. So this is quite a staggering change.”

Paid library staff fell by almost 1,000 in the year to March 2016, from 18,028 to 17,064, according to official figures from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa). In the same period, volunteer numbers rose by more than 3,000, from 41,402 to 44,501.

Anstice warns that the rise in volunteer-run libraries is masking how dramatic the decline in the library service actually is. “[Closure numbers] would be double if volunteer libraries were not taken into account,” he says. “It’s diverting pressure from councils and, in a way, making austerity that bit easier to live with. It is a trend that will only continue while there’s no effective statutory protection for libraries.”

This is exactly what happened in Highgate, London, where the library faced £100,000 of cuts in 2014. Linda Lefevre, of local campaign group Friends of Highgate Library, says: “Those of us involved are very supportive of council-run libraries, and we did not want to go down the volunteer route.” But faced with closure, this seemed the only available way forward. The volunteers – who now number about 40 – have kept the branch open since 2014, working alongside one paid council librarian.

Lefevre says that use of the library remains steady, despite the change: lots of children, a few people looking for a computer or a newspaper, maybe a quiet place to sit. “It’s really important to our local community. We have very good links with our local schools,” she says.

Five of the Isle of Wight’s 11 libraries have been run by volunteers since 2011, with some training provided by the council for the 120-odd unpaid workers. “They would have closed, if the community hadn’t stepped forward,” says library services manager Rob Jones, praising the “brilliant job” they do. However, they should not be expected to provide the same expertise as professionals. “I can train my staff to do all these extra things – I can’t train the volunteers. There are so many of them and they do two or three hours each a week … They’re providing a different level of service.”

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From Barnet to Warwickshire, branches up and down the country are now run by volunteers. Six years after Kensal Rise Library in London was closed, volunteers are now in the middle of refitting the ground floor to move a community library back in. In Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire, locals opened a library earlier this summer, following the council’s closure of a nearby branch. Eighteen volunteers operate the service six hours a day, five days a week. But there is a danger in this success, Anstice warns. If it works, cash-strapped councils may hand over even more libraries to communities.

“It lets the genie out of the bottle – councils see them run well and are looking for budget cuts, and they say there is a third way,” he says. “If the community doesn’t want to run it, they say ‘Well, the community doesn’t want a library’.”

Elizabeth Ash, trustee of the Library Campaign, goes further. “Libraries will just wither,” she says. “It distances the closure of libraries from the local authority, and puts the blame on the local community who ‘didn’t try hard enough’.”

The shift towards volunteer-run libraries also promotes the misconception that being a librarian is not a profession. “Working in a library isn’t just about flicking a date stamp about and re-shelving a few books,” Ash says. “Even with volunteers working alongside library staff, there are issues. The majority of people are doing it with the best will in the world, but they are not necessarily equal to the job.”

Libraries come under the aegis of the Department of Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS), a statement from whom says: “While they [volunteers] are are not a substitute for the paid workforce, they bring an additional wealth of skills, experience and commitment to local libraries.”

But expecting the public to have to volunteer in order to keep their local library open is, in the words of Mandy Powell, “frustrating”. Powell works for the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip), which is currently campaigning for the government to “fulfil their statutory responsibilities to taxpayers” to provide a quality public library service. Like DCMS, Cilip is adamant that volunteers are not a replacement for paid professionals.

“Volunteers are fearful they will lose their libraries, so rather than be faced with that, people think of volunteering … I can understand why people go that route but they should never have been in the position to have to make that decision,” Powell says. “Volunteers have a brilliant role to play in boosting capacity and outreach but they shouldn’t be compelled to take over running the service.”

But for the moment, the volunteers are taking the strain. When Anstice meets the people running the UK’s community libraries, he finds a common link between them all. Volunteers, he says, “absolutely love their library and are desperate to keep it going, [but] they are torn themselves. The majority of them would say that in an ideal world there needs to be a council-run service paid for by the council. However, they are dealing with reality. They want their library open.”