Libraries and library workers

To find out how you too can make a difference, go to eSafety.gov.au/beconnectedyoungmentors

My name is Greg Roberts. I work at Campsie Library and my job there is being basically an aged and disability services librarian for people who are obviously in senior years, people with disabilities, run home library services, library buses and lots of different programming for seniors.

All the time, there’s people looking for help with technology and we just don’t have the resources on our own. We can’t sit next to them for an hour to have someone show them how to do different things, whether it be how to use a computer or how to connect on Facebook, how to use Google Maps. This sort of program takes the people in your community, the people that are coming up to your desk and asking what programs you’ve got available, and giving them either in your library or taking them to a school or organisation where they get that sort of time. They have someone with patience and kindness and a smile on their face to take ‘em through all of that.

A big selling point was how organised the whole Be Connected Young Mentors program was from when it was first presented to us. I had no trouble sort of going to our library management and selling it. They saw it as a great opportunity.
 
The actual training booklet that I was working from has got everything in it. It’s very, very easy to follow, and then the videos that you watch, they’re funny. They’re quick. The resources that you show the students that they can go to, like the little handouts and everything, and all we’re doing is facilitating the teenagers and the seniors to get together like that.

Hearing what the girls get out of today just puts a smile on my face, because I know how much, from my point of view, what the library and the seniors will get out of it, but to see that the girls themselves are giving up their time and energy are getting a lot out of it too. Win-win.   

Why should other libraries and other institutions get involved? Because we’re here as libraries to help our public, the community around us. Otherwise, what are we there for? 

If this isn’t one of the greatest help that I’ve seen, I don’t know what is. And if you’ve got the opportunity to be involved, you’ve gotta do it.

To find out how you too can make a difference, go to eSafety.gov.au/beconnectedyoungmentors

Don't know how to use my iPhone. Very basic and I wanted to learn more about it.

My grandson, you know like, "Pop, where'd you get that phone? All your photos are blurry! Why don't you get an iPhone?"

I said, "I had a Nokia." I said, "What are you going on about?" I said, "I'm not into phones."

You don't know what you're doing and there's nobody there to correct you. That why, now I said, "I don't know how to do this", and [my mentor] showed me a few things there today, enlarged the writing, also the lighting on it. I've got bad eyes, bad hearing.

I know how to use it to make calls, can't answer emails. That's luck. I gotta learn more about that. I can receive them, I know how to delete 'em. At times I make mistakes because it's all flick, flick, flick, flick, and sometimes you flick that way and you got, "I didn't want to get rid of that!"

I didn't think it was going to happen with these mentors. I expected to go to a library and sit in there like a school. It would be a group thing. 

I think one-on-one's fantastic.