I have not thought of him doing all this work in his spare time. Go back and read the article if you missed this aside. I have though of all the work which produces Public Library News occurring because Ian has prioritised his time, not because he has spare time and was wondering what to do with it. It shows how careful we have to be about how we describe people's use of their time.
Do make time to read The most publicity that UK public libraries have had this century? from Public Library News, and consider adding the website or twitter account to your library related news feeds as they are great, and depressing reading.
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Hah, yes. I did explain to the BBC that it was outside of working hours, normally from 8pm on. I guess that's "spare time". But it's certainly not time I hope I waste.
ReplyDeleteHi Ellen, I am a current Library Services student. Interested to know if you noticed a similar trend of volunteers replacing rather than supplementing paid library roles in Australia? Thanks, Aimee
ReplyDeleteAt present paid staff seem to be holding on. The situation is very different in the UK, although there are big differences there between library services. ALIA had a Statement on voluntary work in library and information services which is still viewable here http://alianet.alia.org.au/policies/volunteer.workers.html and I think many libraries stick to this. Looking at the statistics summary from NSLA http://www.nsla.org.au/sites/www.nsla.org.au/files/publications/NSLA.Aust-Pub-Lib-Stats-2013-14_0.pdf the staff numbers are much the same for the last five years. This is very different to the bigs cuts in the UK, which are helpfully brought together by Ian Anstice.
DeleteI figured that you had made it clear, but they were going for a catchy line. I really enjoy following your blog, and appreciate all the information which you bring together.
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