Altruistic or just plain unrealistic – Mr Cameron’s Big Society may sound like a good idea, but not at the expense of other people’s jobs. Even Phillip Bond, one of the original architects, has recently admitted that the project is in difficulty and that within the government ‘the agenda is still not widely grasped or shared across all departments.’

As volunteers are increasingly called upon to keep branch libraries open for a few hours a week, what about the staff in our flagship Central Library.

More than forty years in the planning the £6.8 million building was finished on schedule and within budget in 2008 and is a definite feather in the Swindon Borough collective cap - but what about the staff.

The library hosts children’s storytimes, visits from authors (and daleks!) reading groups…the list goes on and on. And for the local and family historian there is a wealth of resources at Central Library and I don’t just mean books and microfilm.

The local studies department is staffed by a dedicated and experienced team. No query is too insignificant nor, at the other end of the scale, too intractable to receive their attention.

They know just which set of records to refer you to, what organisation might be of help, which website to look at… “Well that’s their job,” you say. Exactly! That’s their job and very good they are at it, too.

Volunteers, with the best will in the world, are unlikely to be as knowledgeable. And a volunteer, by the very nature of the ‘job’ description, puts in as much or as little time as they want to. They won’t turn up Monday to Friday 9.30 – 7.00 pm, stay on for evening events and work Saturdays.

Yesterday I attended a lunch time talk, just one of the many events held regularly at Swindon’s Central Library where Gordon Shaw and David Lewis of the Rodbourne Community History Society told us about the history of their patch. Gordon also gave a brief outline of how the flourishing group came into being.

A pilot for English Heritage’s Living History Project, the Rodbourne venture was launched in 2003 with the support of Outreach Manager Jane Golding and her co-workers Elaine Davis and Ros Wilson, based at the NMR. Sadly this team, which supported numerous other groups, classes and ventures no longer exists, a victim of earlier funding cuts.

So what has been the long term result of the work Jane, Elaine and Ros helped support in Rodbourne? A project which has given focus to the local community and put Rodbourne on the map - the preservation of Rodbourne history which could have so easily been lost following the closure of the railway works. To date the group has recorded on film the oral history of Rodbourne residents, published three local history books and has a growing photographic archive. During the summer months they conduct tours of the area and this year they hope to extend their own outreach work to local schools and youth groups - pretty impressive for a group of enthusiasts.

Gordon mentioned the wonderful facilities we in Swindon enjoy at the Central Library but I doubt very much whether he’d want to open up six days a week!!

I’d like to see how Mr Cameron’s volunteers would maintain the exacting standards on tap at Central Library …. and everywhere else he hopes they will plug the funding deficit.

With a little time on my hands, I’m thinking of volunteering …I’d quite like to have a go at brain surgery, do you think the Great Western Hospital will have me?

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