Abstract:

Volunteerism through social responsibility is one of the most effective ways to ensure stakeholder participation in libraries. In this context, volunteering is regarded as the time and effort devoted to providing benefit to another person, group, or organization. This study analyzes the role of library volunteers in libraries; the benefits, issues, or main problems encountered; staff-volunteer harmony; and volunteer recruitment, training, and policies within the scope of effective stakeholder engagement. The main purpose of this study is to address stakeholder and stakeholder-engagement issues within the framework of libraries and to evaluate library volunteering. The results show provincial and district public libraries in Türkiye to have been working in harmony with volunteers for many years as a strong stakeholder in the provision of different services and the realization of activities. The study discusses the benefits of working with volunteers in libraries in terms of all stakeholders. However, finding appropriate volunteers, volunteer management and planning, training and assistance needs, user dissatisfaction, and not preferring to volunteer for financial reasons have been identified as the main issues and problems. In addition, in order to be successful in volunteering, the need has emerged for an official volunteer policy that will guide volunteer management and volunteers in libraries. This study draws attention to the strategic importance volunteers have in public libraries and presents suggestions on how to have successful volunteerism. This study sheds light on library volunteerism through stakeholder participation and provides novel contributions to the existing literature through its comprehensive evaluation of provincial and district public libraries.

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