Volunteer Project

Volunteers at Tallinn Central Library

The main aim of involving volunteers in our library’s activities is to increase the cohesion between the library and the community. The role of the library today is to help citizens to be full-valued members of the society and to support them in coping with everyday life. Volunteering at the library gives people an opportunity to offer an essential contribution to our society by helping and counseling other members of the community.

We also wish to influence social processes through volunteering. Volunteers of different ages and from all walks of life can help mediate information among different generations and between various groups of society, thus increasing social cohesion and involvement in the community.

The use of library services has increased in recent years. Volunteers give an extra value to library services when contributing with their knowledge, skills and experience. By doing so they help widen and further develop our services. A volunteer in the library sees us through the eyes of a patron and thus helps us make our services more user friendly.

Library volunteers

Tallinn Central Library welcomes volunteers who are willing to contribute their time, energy, skills, knowledge, experience and ideas to encourage diversity in the library and to introduce library services. Anybody can volunteer, regardless of age, national or cultural background or their special needs.

A library volunteer is a cheerful, energetic and creative person. They have great communication skills and they are able to find a common ground of communication with the patrons. Library volunteers are fond of reading, they value books and a systematic approach specific to any library.

We are very happy to welcome refugees and other new arrivals, who have a wish to volunteer by putting their talents and skills to good use. Volunteering can offer new arrivals a great opportunity to practice their language skills (mostly Estonian, English and Russian) and to get a better understanding of the local culture and its people. It is also possible to find ways of introducing your own language and/or culture by organizing language cafes, language courses or culture evenings at the library.

If you have decided to pursue a career in a library then you can start by becoming a volunteer. For those who are in doubt, volunteering may offer help in deciding whether this profession is the right fit for them. You can volunteer if you have retired from paid work, especially if your previous occupation has been connected with libraries, with children and education, or with books and literature. We offer various opportunities for our volunteers – working with children, meeting people who value books and reading, organizing events and helping to introduce library services and many more. These are only some of the examples. We are also very much open to new ideas from volunteers themselves.

For more information please contact koordinaator@nulltln.lib.ee


Register here (in Estonian)