Every now and then, parked carefully on one of the few verges big enough to accommodate its size, the mobile library squats at the top of the road. It serves, tops, three farms and two cottages, the ultimate in bespoke service. I hadn’t seen it for a while and then the village newsletter led with a piece on the mobile library, exhorting us to “use it or lose it”.
There are eleven mobile libraries in Devon alone, stopping in 1200 places, for ten minutes in secluded backwaters up to a couple of hours in small towns. 7,500 people are borrowers; not diminutive people living behind skirting boards, scouting for spare lumps of cheese, but regular users. Dedicated though the remaining ones are, borrowers have decreased by 40% over the last decade, and as crucial a lifeline as it is to some, the times and days on offer now only suit a minority of rural dwellers. Obliged to provide libraries in rural areas and determined to reverse the declining trend, the service is looking at setting up shop at times and in places where people congregate naturally, on market days, alongside the mobile post office and tying in with other village activities.
Their biggest problem is that not enough people know about the mobile library – those that do, love it and relish their chats with the mobile library assistants who double up as HGV drivers and who often hold the same post for twenty or more years. They make sure the stock has something for all their customers including the under fives, families, young adults, and not just the elderly as many assume.
Finding a parking space is not the only consideration that limits where mobile libraries can stop; the slow spread of broadband into rural communities has had an impact too as they use the same computerised issue system as all Devon libraries, which is why you’ll find the vehicles parked up in high spots where they can get a signal.
I relied very heavily on the library as a child; my weekly trip didn’t come round anything like quickly enough and I’d read every book at least twice before it was time to visit again. This was in the city, but even so, it was too far to walk on my own; having a mobile full of books at the end of my street would have been heaven, doubly so if it came complete with knowledgeable recommendations and chats about what stirred me in my reading. Rather than the behemoth building that was a bit scary with hard, ringing floors so you couldn’t be as quiet as the signs required, I’d have loved a cosy cave of child-sized possibilities where I could grab an unknown gem that made me gasp or giggle or groan.
By this winter the library service will make changes so we can start borrowing books in a way that fits more naturally with the way we work and live. And if you like a bit of sand between the sheets of a juicy paperback to get you in the holiday spirit, the South Hams mobile library parks on the beach!
Published in The Landsman June/ July 10 Issue 20
