I have recently come across people who have a narrow concept of a Mobile Library, thinking that they are all large, expensive vehicles, but that is not the case. Here is an example of small, but perfectly formed, and very effective mobile libraries
Bright Star Mobile Library – Give2Asia
Showing posts with label mobile libraries.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile libraries.. Show all posts
Monday, 29 October 2012
Friday, 11 May 2012
And now dear readers, it is time to reveal all!
I should have mentioned, on the 4th of April, that I did become a Doctor! The Thesis was duly defended and passed, subject to corrections which are not too many or too difficult. It is now time for me to tell the world about what I found. I will do this by breaking down the findings into small, post sized pieces and when I have done all those, I will do case studies of each vehicle that I observed, anonymised of course. This task should keep me occupied for a while!
Today's contribution is about the thing that is special about children's mobile libraries (CML). I defined a children's mobile library as a vehicle that provides all the services of a static children's library, but I felt that as I was specifically investigating mobile, not static children's libraries, I needed to find the element that made them special. Otherwise I could just have observed any children's library. I admit that what I discovered was blindingly obvious, children's mobile libraries work because they are mobile, they come and go away again.
This transience has a number of effects. It makes children and their parents or carers excited about visiting the vehicle. The excitement that children feel stimulates their brains into the right sort of state to absorb information therefore they learn better. The coming and going ensures that customers "Catch" the vehicle, they know when and where it is coming, so they make the effort to go, unlike a library that is always there, so you could choose to go whenever you want to but end up not going. I had not done very many observations when I noticed that one phrase was repeatedly told to me by many people. They liked the CML because it was "Different".
It was different because it was "Like a trip out", because the books were different, because the stories were different, told by a different person in a different way. The idea of this different thing that turned up out of the blue every fortnight, or three weeks, or month captures the imagination, and the anticipation of the event makes people, especially children, excited. Now, as an ex-teacher, I know that half your battle in controlling a class is stopping them from getting too excited, but it turns out that to learn well, you have to have certain amount of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline flushing around your brain. This wakes up the brain, relaxes it but also makes it alert, just what you want when trying to get the little dears to learn something. So, if you have all these children coming onto a vehicle stacked with everything to do with literacy (books, videos, stories, computers, pictures, words), their brains are picking up all the clues they need to piece together the jig-saw of reading ability.
But what happens if the brains are constantly stimulated? There is no time for feedback, for reflection, for setting down the experiences into memory, so you need a time of calm.This happens when the CMLs go away, and life returns to boring reality of the classroom, or nursery, or home and dinner. That sort of time lets children sort out and make sense of the things that they have just seen and heard. Remembering the story, for instance, or recalling a picture in a book, or thinking about the book they want to borrow next time or the enjoyment of the one that they have in their hand, just borrowed. I have a diagram to explain all this, which I will put in here.
"Build up" is what happens when customers are expecting the vehicle, "Occurrence" is what happens inside the vehicle and "Release" is the moment of calm and thought after the vehicle has left.
There is also a theory by someone called Carmelli, that travelling shows, which seem to appear overnight and disappear just as quickly, attract people because people feel that they have a brief moment to experience a small part of something eternal, that keeps circling around forever. Mobile services certainly seem to attract the human mind, just think of ice-cream vans, and what a treat it is to have one in your street. It takes a mean parent to refuse a child an ice-cream when the van comes into your road, even if it is nearly lunch-time. Children's mobile libraries feed off this sort of attraction.
If you want to follow up Carmelli's work the reference is "Carmelli, Y.S. 1987 Why does Jimmy Brown's Circus Travel?: A semiotic approach to the analysis of circus ecology. Poetics Today, 8(2). 219-244". There are many books available on education and the brain.
Today's contribution is about the thing that is special about children's mobile libraries (CML). I defined a children's mobile library as a vehicle that provides all the services of a static children's library, but I felt that as I was specifically investigating mobile, not static children's libraries, I needed to find the element that made them special. Otherwise I could just have observed any children's library. I admit that what I discovered was blindingly obvious, children's mobile libraries work because they are mobile, they come and go away again.
This transience has a number of effects. It makes children and their parents or carers excited about visiting the vehicle. The excitement that children feel stimulates their brains into the right sort of state to absorb information therefore they learn better. The coming and going ensures that customers "Catch" the vehicle, they know when and where it is coming, so they make the effort to go, unlike a library that is always there, so you could choose to go whenever you want to but end up not going. I had not done very many observations when I noticed that one phrase was repeatedly told to me by many people. They liked the CML because it was "Different".
It was different because it was "Like a trip out", because the books were different, because the stories were different, told by a different person in a different way. The idea of this different thing that turned up out of the blue every fortnight, or three weeks, or month captures the imagination, and the anticipation of the event makes people, especially children, excited. Now, as an ex-teacher, I know that half your battle in controlling a class is stopping them from getting too excited, but it turns out that to learn well, you have to have certain amount of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline flushing around your brain. This wakes up the brain, relaxes it but also makes it alert, just what you want when trying to get the little dears to learn something. So, if you have all these children coming onto a vehicle stacked with everything to do with literacy (books, videos, stories, computers, pictures, words), their brains are picking up all the clues they need to piece together the jig-saw of reading ability.
But what happens if the brains are constantly stimulated? There is no time for feedback, for reflection, for setting down the experiences into memory, so you need a time of calm.This happens when the CMLs go away, and life returns to boring reality of the classroom, or nursery, or home and dinner. That sort of time lets children sort out and make sense of the things that they have just seen and heard. Remembering the story, for instance, or recalling a picture in a book, or thinking about the book they want to borrow next time or the enjoyment of the one that they have in their hand, just borrowed. I have a diagram to explain all this, which I will put in here.
There is also a theory by someone called Carmelli, that travelling shows, which seem to appear overnight and disappear just as quickly, attract people because people feel that they have a brief moment to experience a small part of something eternal, that keeps circling around forever. Mobile services certainly seem to attract the human mind, just think of ice-cream vans, and what a treat it is to have one in your street. It takes a mean parent to refuse a child an ice-cream when the van comes into your road, even if it is nearly lunch-time. Children's mobile libraries feed off this sort of attraction.
If you want to follow up Carmelli's work the reference is "Carmelli, Y.S. 1987 Why does Jimmy Brown's Circus Travel?: A semiotic approach to the analysis of circus ecology. Poetics Today, 8(2). 219-244". There are many books available on education and the brain.
Monday, 15 June 2009
A Study similar to the one I want to conduct
Study of Mobile libraries in Clwyd, 1990, by Ian Dyson
This was written from the point of view of rural services. Dyson spent a day each on two of the mobiles from Clywd's fleet of nine talking to staff and customers. In this respect he conducted an ethnographic observation, taking note of representative comments from the customers. He noted that the ethos of the mobile library service was different to that of static libraries. They provided a greater social service that just being a library delivery service. They were focal meeting points for small communities, the operators performed other functions, taking books into people homes during snowy conditions, giving help and advice, answering queries, local knowledge.
He considered other types of library provision, and compared advantages and disadvantages. Cost of service per head of population appears to be the major consideration when authorities are auditing such provision, but Dyson argues that they do not take all the factors into consideration. A part-time library in a rural location could be flexible with opening hours, but cost more by purchase of a building and a proportion of static stock. Sharing a premises and therefore cost is possible, but takes effort to negotiate with other bodies. An example of shared premises is having a library in a school, which Clwyd did, however, charges were introduced that made the situation too costly. It is interesting to note that in recent years libraries are again going into other buildings, for instance in Derby city and somewhere else that I heard of recently has one in a community centre.
Dyson discusses the pros and cons on trailer, van and container libraries, which were good value. The drawbacks for that sort of provision is the time taken to take the out to stops, and customer access. He approaches the idea of busing the elderly customers into static libraries where they could socialise as a cost effective excersise. He also highlights the plight of rural children, they may be in school when the mobile library calls. He suggests that school library service provision could be increased but realises that if more money is put there then it decreases elsewhere. He thinks that their ever growing needs should be considered with urgency.
The arguments that mobile libraries have such a limited book stock are dispelled by Dyson relating to comment of one customer who stated her preference for the mobile library over the nearest static one because she know where to find what she wanted in the mobile library, but got lost in the larger branch library. He goes on to illustrate that a smaller selection of stock does not always mean less borrowing. When one of the local libraries needed to remove stock to barcode them for a computerised system, spaces in shelves were filled by face on book display, and issues increased.
This was written from the point of view of rural services. Dyson spent a day each on two of the mobiles from Clywd's fleet of nine talking to staff and customers. In this respect he conducted an ethnographic observation, taking note of representative comments from the customers. He noted that the ethos of the mobile library service was different to that of static libraries. They provided a greater social service that just being a library delivery service. They were focal meeting points for small communities, the operators performed other functions, taking books into people homes during snowy conditions, giving help and advice, answering queries, local knowledge.
He considered other types of library provision, and compared advantages and disadvantages. Cost of service per head of population appears to be the major consideration when authorities are auditing such provision, but Dyson argues that they do not take all the factors into consideration. A part-time library in a rural location could be flexible with opening hours, but cost more by purchase of a building and a proportion of static stock. Sharing a premises and therefore cost is possible, but takes effort to negotiate with other bodies. An example of shared premises is having a library in a school, which Clwyd did, however, charges were introduced that made the situation too costly. It is interesting to note that in recent years libraries are again going into other buildings, for instance in Derby city and somewhere else that I heard of recently has one in a community centre.
Dyson discusses the pros and cons on trailer, van and container libraries, which were good value. The drawbacks for that sort of provision is the time taken to take the out to stops, and customer access. He approaches the idea of busing the elderly customers into static libraries where they could socialise as a cost effective excersise. He also highlights the plight of rural children, they may be in school when the mobile library calls. He suggests that school library service provision could be increased but realises that if more money is put there then it decreases elsewhere. He thinks that their ever growing needs should be considered with urgency.
The arguments that mobile libraries have such a limited book stock are dispelled by Dyson relating to comment of one customer who stated her preference for the mobile library over the nearest static one because she know where to find what she wanted in the mobile library, but got lost in the larger branch library. He goes on to illustrate that a smaller selection of stock does not always mean less borrowing. When one of the local libraries needed to remove stock to barcode them for a computerised system, spaces in shelves were filled by face on book display, and issues increased.
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