Managing Library Volunteers

Managing Library Volunteers
Author: Preston Driggers
Publisher: ALA Editions
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-01-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780838910641

Quality volunteers can make a world of difference in today's library, and this hands-on guide gives you everything you need to maximize your library's services and build a bridge between your library and the community it serves.

Library Volunteers Welcome!

Library Volunteers Welcome!
Author: Carol Smallwood
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-09-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1476623821

Volunteers are crucial to the daily operation of any library. Finding and retaining the right people, motivating them and matching their skills with projects is challenging. This collection of 30 new essays brings together the experiences of numerous individuals across the U.S., providing ideas, projects and best practices for volunteer recruiting and management. The contributors--among them library board members, heads of special collections, directors of state library associations, outreach coordinators, archivists and researchers--discuss a broad range of topics in five sections: recruitment and retention; policies and process; mentoring and empowering; placement, programs and responsibilities; and outreach.

Success with Library Volunteers

Success with Library Volunteers
Author: Leslie Edmonds Holt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2013-12-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1610690494

Covering principles, practical guidelines, and best practices for establishing and operating a successful library volunteer program in any type of library, this is a must-have resource for the 21st-century librarian. In these tough economic times, librarians must maximize the potential of their volunteer programs. This innovative guide not only provides readers with the practical information they need to recruit, manage, and retain effective volunteers, but also demonstrates how to create a dynamic volunteer program—one that offers purposeful work and emphasizes rewards rather than rules and forms. Illustrated by best practices, this book also offers practical guidelines for evaluating the success of a volunteer program—in terms of the library's benefit, and in terms of the experience from the volunteer's point of view.

Library Volunteers--Worth the Effort!

Library Volunteers--Worth the Effort!
Author: Sally Gardner Reed
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2010-07-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780786484102

Faced with ever growing patron demands, tight budgets, and limited personnel, libraries are relying more and more on volunteers to assist the paid staff. But for every professional who "manages" volunteers there is a horror story--a "problem volunteer" who lacked the talent, commitment, team spirit, personality or available time to do the job. How does the busy librarian develop and manage a successful volunteer program? This is the guide to implementing and managing a volunteer program tailored to the needs of the individual library. Issues such as recruitment and placement, training, development, and evaluation, and the "challenging" volunteer are discussed. Sample applications, advertisements, press releases, job descriptions, and skills and aptitude tests are also included.

Making the Most of Teen Library Volunteers

Making the Most of Teen Library Volunteers
Author: Becca Boland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2020-03-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1440865639

When teens volunteer at the library, they gain new skills, make connections, and build their resumes, while libraries benefit from a new generation of advocates. This guide shows librarians how to establish or develop a teen volunteer program. Advocating a flexible approach, this book speaks to every library, including both public and school libraries. From small libraries with no budget to large libraries with seemingly endless budgets and everything in between, all of the concepts covered can be scaled up or down to meet the needs of the community being served. The book begins with the big picture, discussing benefits to teens, libraries, and communities; it then reviews volunteer types and volunteer possibilities for teens, including the traditional roles of shelving and programming as well as passion-led projects, programming opportunities, and special initiatives and drives. Specific volunteer roles are described in depth, with instructions for practical applications, and concrete examples and experiences from various types of libraries illustrate principles discussed. Readers will also learn how to establish volunteer partnerships within and outside of the library. The book ends with a discussion of methods for evaluation and assessment.

Challenges in Volunteer Management

Challenges in Volunteer Management
Author: Matthew Liao-Troth
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1607528312

Volunteer management has many challenges, not the least of which is how we study it and view it. Academics examine it from a variety of disciplines and practitioners experience it in a variety of contexts. However both approaches have limitations. In academia we go to public administration schools to learn about public and nonprofit management, to business schools to apply the principles of private enterprise to nonprofit management, to sociology departments to study the phenomena of volunteerism, to psychology departments to understand the motives of volunteers, and economics departments to examine the value or economic worth of volunteerism. The liability of the academic approach is the segmentation of study and research into departmental areas. The study of volunteers and volunteerism needs to cross all of these organizational and discipline boundaries to be fully appreciated and understood as a field of interest. In contrast, practitioners view volunteer management from their own unique experiences. They try to gauge success in volunteer management based on what they have encountered in particular organizations, towns, cultures, and countries in which they work. As important as these insights are, they are difficult to generalize beyond local settings. Just because an individual has been successful in working with volunteers, it does not mean that the lessons learned in one situation can be translated to others under all conditions. The target audience for this volume is anyone who manages volunteers. The goal of the volume is to demonstrate the breadth of thought on volunteer management, both across disciplines and a wide range of settings in which volunteers work.

How It Feels to Float

How It Feels to Float
Author: Helena Fox
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 052555436X

"Profoundly moving . . . Will take your breath away." —Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces "Give this to all your friends immediately . . . It tackles mental health, depression, sexual identity, and anxiety with beauty and empathy." —Cosmopolitan.com A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of the Year Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface—normal okay regular fine. She has her friends, her mom, the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who shouldn't be here but is. So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything—not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And not about seeing her dad. Because her dad died when she was seven. But after what happens on the beach, the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. Her dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away? Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, bring him back to her. Or maybe—maybe maybe maybe—there's a third way Biz just can't see yet. Debut author Helena Fox tells a story about love, grief, and inter-generational mental illness, exploring the hard and beautiful places loss can take us, and honoring those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea. "I haven't been so dazzled by a YA in ages." —Jandy Nelson, author of I'll Give You the Sun (via SLJ) "Mesmerizing and timely." —Bustle "Nothing short of exquisite." —PopSugar "Immensely satisfying" —Girls' Life * "Lyrical and profoundly affecting." —Kirkus (starred review) * "Masterful...Just beautiful." —Booklist (starred review) * "Intimate...Unexpected." —PW (starred review) * "Fox writes with superb understanding and tenderness." —BCCB (starred review) * "Frank [and] beautifully crafted." —BookPage (starred review) "Deeply moving...A story of hope." —Common Sense Media "This book will explode you into atoms." —Margo Lanagan, author of Tender Morsels "Helena Fox's novel delivers. Read it." —Cath Crowley, author of Words in Deep Blue "This is not a book; it is a work of art." —Kerry Kletter, author of The First Time She Drowned "Perfect...Readers will be deeply moved." —Books+Publishing

From Library Volunteer to Library Advocate

From Library Volunteer to Library Advocate
Author: Carla Campbell Lehn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

This guide will show you how to reinvigorate your library's volunteer program using your community as a resource. Volunteers are essential to a library's well-being, but running a volunteer program is a complicated task that could often be done so as to bring more benefit to your library. This book draws on the author's decades of experience in public libraries and the nonprofit arena, and on cutting-edge professional trends in volunteer management, to show you how to tap into each of your volunteer's talents and match them to your library's needs. Providing multiple tactics for improving your library's volunteer program, the book covers redoubling your recruitment efforts to attract more volunteers, more logically assigning roles, and growing your relationships with volunteers. In addition, it addresses common problems with volunteers and potential barriers to success and explains how to overcome them. No matter what size your library, its volunteer staff, or its budget, this practical book will help you to streamline your volunteer program and more effectively engage the community to transform your library into a flourishing community center.