Hello
Caroline
In
Cambridgeshire until January this year we had two double staffed special mobile
libraries that visited residential homes and sheltered housing and a service to
housebound readers coordinated by librarians but delivered by volunteers. There
was a general feeling that these mobiles were not fully utilised, especially as
they ran to a published timetable but circumstances, especially in the
residential homes, changed so frequently that often the mobile crews were
hanging around waiting for someone to come on board (although they often visited
customers within the building as well). We also found that there was an overlap
between users of the mobile library service and the housebound
service.
When we had to cut our mobile fleet it was clear that
the most vulnerable services were those run by the special mobiles. The result
is that the sheltered housing stops have been integrated onto the normal public
mobile routes. Although anyone in sheltered housing who cannot easily access the
mobile is served by the housebound
service. Customers in residential homes are gradually being filtered into the
housebound service, although the numbers involved were so large that we are
using a member of the library staff to make deliveries by van directly to some
of the customers as an interim solution. One thing has become very clear in that
the turnover in customers within homes is considerable so matching the user and
the volunteer is taking a larger proportion of the Coordinator's
time.
It is nearly six months since the change and things
seem to have gone fairly smoothly.
David
Hi
Caroline Johnston
Community Development Manager - City
Area
Library and Information Service
Leeds City Council
Tel. 0113
2478286
www.leeds.gov.uk/libraries
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