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- Community Partnered Library volunteer
- Volunteer coordinator role at New Haw Community Partnered Library
Are you interested in joining a team of volunteers to provide library services to the communities of Surrey? Surrey Libraries have 10 Community Partnered Libraries which are run by teams of volunteers, with support from Surrey County Council staff. The volunteers manage the library on a day-to-day basis and are always looking for new team members to help deliver services to their local residents.
Community Partnered Library volunteer
Library tasks can be very varied, but typical activities could include:
- Welcoming library users and answering their enquiries
- Joining new library members
- Supporting day-to-day duties, such as unpacking crates, locating books, shelving and book presentation.
- Assisting the customers using the library's public computers and printing
- Supporting customers to use library resources and self-service facilities, including assisting people to make cash payments at the self-service kiosks
- Arranging and running events, such as author talks or children's activities
- Promoting libraries – talking to friends and using social media to promote library services
- Supporting the opening and closing of the library
- Opportunities to join the committees who manage each library
To volunteer with us you will need to:
- Be friendly and approachable
- Be willing to learn how the library works
- Have good communication skills and the ability to deal with enquiries
- Be confident in the basic use of computers and the internet
- Be organised and reliable
- Be enthusiastic about the library service
The time commitment varies for each volunteer and library, but a 3 to 4 hour session once a week is typical.
There are 10 Community Partnered Libraries:
- Bagshot library
- Bramley library
- Byfleet library
- Ewell Court library
- Lingfield library
- New Haw library
- Stoneleigh library
- Tattenhams library
- Virginia Water library
- Warlingham library
If you are interested in volunteering have a look at our Expression of Interest form and see if there are any vacancies for this role near you.
Community Partnered Library volunteering: Expression of Interest form
Volunteer coordinator role at New Haw Community Partnered Library
New Haw library has been running as a Community Partnered Library (CPL) for the past 12 years. Surrey County Council (SCC) provides the premises and the books, with staffing provided by and managed by volunteers. To do this, we set up a limited liability company which is also a registered charity, the New Haw Library Community Partnership, to run the library. New Haw library is one of 10 CPLs in Surrey, all of which operate in slightly different ways. We keep in touch with our CPL colleagues to share knowledge and advice.
The library is also a Community Hub and is used for a variety of local social, community and business events.
This has worked very successfully over the past 12 years . We have a core team of around 40 volunteers to run the library on a day-to-day basis, governed through the Management Group and Trustees.
The role
- Responsible for ensuring (with others) that the library has sufficient volunteers to remain open during agreed opening hours.
- Ensuring the well-being of those volunteers and that we abide by SCC policies, for example in respect of health and safety, safeguarding and diversity.
- Ensuring that for each session (morning or afternoon) there is a Team Leader in place and that holidays and other absences are covered.
- Ensuring that volunteers are adequately trained in accordance with SCC requirements using the SCC computer software.
- Ensuring that any staffing issues are resolved promptly in discussion with the Chairman and Trustees as necessary.
- Attending Management Group and other library meetings as required.
- Responding to information requests from Surrey County Council.
Skill set
- You will need to be empathetic and work effectively with a wide range of people including volunteers, SCC managers, and the public.
- You should be well organised and be able to think ahead to make sure that holidays and other absences are covered and that risks are managed.
This is a really interesting voluntary post and you will be responsible for helping to maintain the library for the local community.
The way forward
This role falls vacant in Spring 2025, but we are keen to make an appointment in 2024 so that the new post holder can learn the job by working in tandem with the current post holder.
Applicants will be interviewed by representatives from the Library Trustees and references will be required.
Further information
For further information please contact Carol Deakins (Chairman) on 07857 151740 or carol.deakins@nhlcp.org.uk.
