Library Volunteers A Practical Guide for Librarians

Volunteers are one of the most overlooked and underused resources available to nonprofits and other organizations.

This guide will help find willing volunteers in the community and utilize their skills in a way that benefits the volunteer as well as the organization.

Overseeing volunteers can be a daunting task.

On top of all of the other duties library staff are typically responsible for, creating a volunteer program from scratch can seem nearly impossible.

The work doesn’t stop once the program is created: volunteers have to be trained and retained; job duties have to be written, assessed, and refreshed; the benefits of the program need to be documented and weighed.

While “volunteer coordinator” is easily a full-time job, it rarely is in the library or nonprofit world.

Anything that can make volunteer management easier on library and nonprofit staff will benefit everyone involved.

Library Volunteers: A Practical Guide for Librarians covers every aspect of volunteer programs, from creating, to recruiting, to retaining and keeping the opportunities fresh and appealing.

It has information pertaining to elementary age, teenage, and adult volunteers, including innovative and unique volunteer positions that can be offered to them.