Saturday 10 August 2013

The Mobile Library Comes to Town

The mobile library comes to our village once a month; this is the first time that hubby and I have been around and/or remembered that it was coming so we decided to make the effort to wander up to the high street.
Despite living in Somerset for over two years, we hadn't yet managed to join up to the local library service, so we took along our ID in case it was possible to join up there and then. And, luckily, it was.

The librarian on board mentioned that in the year he's been visiting our village, we were his first 'customers'; I thought he meant that we were the first people to have joined up on board but he said no, we were the first people to actually set foot inside the van in the village. That made me feel extremely sad. He said it's often the case in the more affluent villages, whereas less well-to-do places make better use of the service he provides. That made me feel sad and guilty.

We bumped into some neighbours as we walked back through the village clutching our newly borrowed books (including two books for DC); we told them what we'd just heard about the fact that the mobile library isn't used in our village, they thought it was sad too so I hope they will make the effort to hop aboard and borrow a book or two and also pass on the word that we should use it, or risk losing it.

I am going to do my best to spread the word about the mobile library and hubby is going to put something on the village website; I imagine that some people don't know that it comes to visit once a month, some people are obviously busy when it rolls in, and some people probably forget, but I can't believe we are the only ones in the village who think that borrowing a book (or four) is a great thing to do.

8 comments:

  1. That is sad. We're lucky enough to have an actual library (as in a building) in our village and it is very well used thankfully. I hope your 'campaign' works.

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    1. I feel guilty that it's taken me so long to use the library :(

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  2. A whole year with no visiters????? I'm so glad youre spreading the word... I work for Austin school district and I can't even begin to tell you how many children tell me they HATE reading!! (I pass out every time)... that's absurd! They are just reading the wrong books! My own children read and a couple of them are proper book worms so this pains me to see an unused library!! I blame technology!
    Have a great weekend,
    Tammy x

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    1. I love reading (you may have seen posts where I've mentioned how many books I've got on my 'unread' bookshelves!) so it amazes me to think that no-one in our village has used the library in a whole year. But then again, I only used it for the first time this week so I can't talk!

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  3. I quit going to the library because I was always bad about getting my books back on time. Then my library went digital and I could check out books for my Kindle and that's what I do. Oh am I lazy!

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    1. I hadn't thought of the e-book as a reason why the mobile library is under-used, but I suppose it could have quite an effect on physical library visits. And I suppose more people in a so-called affluent village might have e-readers

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  4. Our mobile library visits the village primary school and all the kids are issued with library cards. It does the sounds every 2 week's I think although we use the actual (stationary) library.

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    1. What a brilliant idea. I wonder if there's a way of doing that in our village? Definitely worth looking in to.

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