Some are good, some are dubious

I have been looking back over my collection of Google Alerts again to weed out the interesting articles from the gathered emails of schedules of bookmobile of mobile library routes. I considered whether there was any historical reason why I should save the schedules and from a big data point of view, that may be interesting, but I decided against it, think that if they are still on the net from 2013, then they should be there if anyone wanted to do a heat map of the mobile libraries driving across the USA.

I did come across some interesting articles two of which are rather unusual and one just cheerful. I also came across some news items of mobile libraries closing, or being under threat. Together they show that although there are very good things happening with Mobile Libraries there are also bad things and sometimes people's motives may be a bit dubious. There are a lot of thoughts in that sentence, so lets take them one at a time, starting with the bad things.

 Bad things

Mobile Libraries, and specialist children's mobile libraries (CMLs), are easy targets for budgetary cuts. When I traced the history of CMLs I spotted the pattern of them popping up like mushrooms at various times, living for a number of short years, then, just like mushrooms disappearing for a while, sometimes to reappear after several years when another grant was available. In the UK over the past few years there has been enormous pressure on local authority funding and libraries have taken the full thrust of savings. So in 2013/2014 I found a number of articles about threats to mobile libraries in rural locations which were considered a life line to the local communities. I am not sure whether the mobile library services were actually cut in the end, something to pursue another day.

The UK was not the only country where mobile libraries have closed and isolated or minority communities are the hardest hit. I found an article about one in the USA which had been running for over 50 years, and had many visitors from Amish communities and one from Canada too.

I thought that I had found a good article when I saw the heading "Peace Corps Brings Bookmobile to Isolated Georgian Communities", from the Philadelphia News. It refers to Georgia the country between Turkey and Russia, not the US state of that name. I am not including the URL because the site is full of adverts, some of a dubious nature. I am sure that you can find it if you google it. However, I have my doubts about the ethics of that particular bookmobile:

• The vehicle is a converted school bus from the US - What is wrong with using local vehicles?
• It is operated by the US Embassy
• Although targeted to the youth in the settlements, it "promotes American Culture" - What is wrong with Georgian culture?
• The books are in English

Now, I believe that the Embassy and the Peace Corps consider that they are doing a good thing for those youth, and learning about other countries is a good thing, but if you are trying to engage displaced young people and help the disadvantaged then  at least start with what they know, their own language and culture. I just get the uneasy feeling that this bookmobile may be more about propaganda that altruism.

Good things

The first good thing, to counter library closures, here is a library opening.This is an example of a service that paused until money was found to start it again. The community is rightly proud of bringing back a service that will mainly serve schools, but will then visit other parts of the community.

The second good thing is a bicycle mobile service. Now, I am sure that you have heard of them before, but this one is not in Peru, or Cambodia, but in Arcata, California.


The project, as it was in 2014, was the idea of university teacher and bicycle enthusiast Melanie Williams who is combining her passions of teaching, literacy and cycling. All the books have a cycling theme and she explains her reasons for doing this in her interview with the local radio station. Part of the interview is about the Book Mobile and the latter part about her work in promoting cycling. If you have 15 minutes to spare it is well worth listening to what she says.

MP encourages parents to support children's reading

With the forthcoming "snap" election it is really heartening to know that an MP has spoken out about the importance of parental encouragement for reading. Sadly, it is not anyone in the UK, but then at the moment we do not actually have any MPs, we just have contestants for the role.

This particular MP is Mr Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, the Member of Parliament for Odododiodoo Constituency in Ghana. In his speech for 2017 International Children's Book Day he urged parents to promote a reading culture for their children and he told children to "read, do not stop reading, read anything at all". Mr Vanderpuye carried on with reporting the library services available in the area, which includes a mobile library that visits schools. To read more about it see:

https://www.newsghana.com.gh/inculcate-reading-culture-in-your-wards-mp-urges-parents/

If only our potential MPs could be so passionate about reading and libraries in their campaigning. There is a chance to encourage them. CILIP is spearheading a campaign to get all parliamentary candidates to state that they will use evidence base facts in their electioneering.

https://www.cilip.org.uk/advocacy-awards/advocacy-campaigns/facts-matter

Why not ask them to commit to keeping libraries open  and to promote reading as well.

Not a library, but a bus to spread reading and literacy

In Tampa, on Tampa Bay, in the American state of Florida lives a little yellow bus, called Bess. This bus is full of books and is a not for profit enterprise, that travels accross the USA distributing new books to children in areas of deprivation.  Staffed by volunteers it visits schools who read the stories to the children in classrooms before giving out the books. The intention of the project is to build up libraries in children's homes and give children the opportunity to own a book, which they may not have otherwise.

The idea was started by one woman, Jennifer Frances (Jenn) 14 years ago. It intially operated only in Tampa, but decided to go nationwide after its first 5 years. Jenn says that she was inspired by her grandmother (Nana Bess) who gave her the love of books and reading. Jenn wants to do that with each child. The vehicle manages to operate through donations and sponsorship, from a variety of sources, including Mecedes Benz to a book publisher.

I think that we are very fortunate that here in the UK we have the Book Trust's Bookstart scheme, which also gives books to children. This is a larger enterprise than Bess the Bookbus. Books are distributed to each child in the UK, not always in a little yellow bus, but Sheffield used to have a little blue bus, like a zoo, to go around schools and centres giving out stories and Bookstart packs. I am not sure that it still has. Usually the books are given away at libraries or health clinics, by library staff or health visitors, and children recieve them at the ages of 0-12 months and again at 3-4 years.

Here is the Sheffield bus, with the Bookstart Bear.

Bookstart is a UK charity, has a certain amount of government funding and accepts donations. It works closely with publishers to produce books suitable for children with additional needs and dual language books. Bess the Bookbus, and Bookstart have the same aims - give books, get children reading. 
 

Looking at my collection of Bookmobile and Children's Mobile Library Alerts

It may seem that I have totally abandoned children's mobile libraries and have switched camp to Open Access, and certainly the Full Time Job gets in the way of doing just what I want to do, but amongst the intellectual bother of writing papers, applying for permanent jobs and not getting them and keeping OpenDOAR (www.opendoar.org) as up to date as I can, I am still gathering as much information as I can about children's mobile libraries. Here is a link to an article in an American local paper about a mobile library that was axed and has been re-instated. Strictly it is a general bookmobile, but the staff comment about the importance of reaching out to children, amongst other groups that are hard to get into a static library. The staff feel that running the library is worthwhile if it gets children reading.

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/twin-falls-library-brings-back-bookmobile/article_c31456bb-14ce-5890-b3e9-61f4ba7bb390.html

Here is another example of an American bookmobile bringing books, excitement and literature and literacy to children as this Author/Attorney remembers.

http://patriciareding.booklikes.com/post/564126/the-bookmobile-is-here-

It does make me wonder whether she would just be an attorney if she had not had her imagination stretched by the visit of the bookmobile.

Just for good measure today, here is a link to another blog about the potted history of bookmobiles across America. I have added it here as somewhere safe to keep it!

http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2013/10/09/derek-attig-on-the-history-of-bookmobiles/

I will write some more posts when I have finished trudging through my accumulation of alerts and picked out the best ones.

Library on wheels brings joy in Vietnam - Passport - Boston.com

For some reason I have found this link to an article tucked away in my blog drafts. I was actually looking for something else, a rather more profound half written post about one aspect of my thesis. I think I gathered it (this article) and did not post it because it was not about a vehicle, or mode of transport. I have re-read it, and I think that it is worth sharing because it  shows the variety of ways that books can be taken around to children for them to borrow. I think that the title of the article is misleading, the picture of the box does not show any wheels, and if there are any, then I think I would call them castors!.

Library on wheels brings joy in Vietnam - Passport - Boston.com

It is also an example of children to be able to read books in their own language

What have I been doing for so long?

Well, it really seems like I abandoned this blog, because it has been such a long time since I posted anything on here. I have in fact been so very busy, having a proper job instead of the lovely life of being a PhD student. I am working data and databases and open access at the moment, but I have not lost sight of children's mobile libraries and librarianship. I did, however, loose my feed reader when Google reader disappeared, but I have found a substitute.

Here is a link to a Chinese Children's Mobile Library, to celebrate my comeback.

 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2013-08/27/content_16923318.htm

I particularly like the water cooler.

There are some very astute people in Oman. A children's mobile library is being set up there, because they know of the importance of children being able to select books themselves, from a wide selection.

http://www.muscatdaily.com/Archive/Oman/Dar-al-Atta-a-mobile-library-to-start-touring-in-November-2j15

In this link, we find out that the lowest loss of library books in Kent are from their children's mobile libraries

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway_messenger/news/lost-stock-at-libraries-5728/

I am very pleased with the attitude of the library spokes person. When I was on the Reading Rocket, we were of the opinion that if books went missing, it meant that some children were getting books who would not otherwise have had any. In my mind it was a case of setting books free. As it happened, we had very little stock permanently disappear, books would suddenly be returned after having had an adventure for a year or more. The most extreme example that I remember was a father of four bringing back two large black bin liners full of out library books. I think some had been out for nearly two years. He must have found the children's stash!