Unemployed? Let Them Do Voluntary Work

Being unemployed made me more than usually aware of Mrs Thatcher looking over my shoulder. She was saying, ‘Don't just sit there filling in application forms, do something — voluntary work for instance’. So, a few months out of library school, I took on a voluntary project, organising the photograph collection of a community publisher in Hackney, ‘Centerprise’. Mrs Thatcher aside, I thought doing this project would be a good way of finding out what freelance librarianship might be like. But before I tell my story, I must say something about Centerprise.