Children’s Mobile Libraries

You may be familiar with the sight a a mobile library driving down the road, or perhaps if you live in a particularly rural area you may visit one yourself. To avid readers who can’t get to a static library for one reason or another they are a total lifeline for books and other library resources. Mobile libraries operate around the world in many countries service remote and disadvantaged communities, but also lurk around the streets of towns and cities bringing the library to them.

But, did you realise that mobile libraries have their specialities? Some are specifically designed, built, kitted out and stocked for the use of children – children’s mobile libraries (CMLs). Even these can have their special focus. For example, CMLs designed for under-fives that visit nurseries and under-five’s groups, ones designed to visit schools that bring supplies for students and teachers, ones that also go to parks, street corners, after-school clubs, little villages and traveller sites, anywhere where there are children.

Most children’s mobile libraries are complete libraries on wheels, having book collections spanning all subjects, tastes, abilities suitable for all ages under 18 and books on parenting and supporting children as well. Some are equipped with computers  whereas other specialise in story telling activities alone, and do not lend out the books.

Storytelling, or reading aloud to groups of children from the books on the vehicle, is a common activity on any type of CML. In the UK, CMLs are operated by local authorities, either as part of the public library service or the schools library service. The general aims of the services are to encourage reading.  The funding for these vehicles can be quite precarious, so when you look over a number of decades you see that they can pop up in places, like mushrooms, and then disappear almost as quickly to be followed some years later by another one.

In other countries, charities operate CMLs with the intention of spreading literacy. One specif project is The Book Bus. which is operated by a UK charity called the Book Bus foundation. This has a small fleet of buses operating in Zambia, Malawi and Ecuador. The books that they lend are  carefully chosen to be relevant to the communities they serve.

These  vehicles are not gimmicky marketing tools for local libraries, they are not simple entertainment for children. The fact that they move around means that they can go anywhere where there are children who need access to literature and information. For example, remote and rural communities where avid readers devour books faster than parents can buy them, places of deprivation behind the streets of towns and cities where children do not know how to hold a book, never mind what adventures the book contains, and traveller communities, refugee sites and secure units.

They spread literacy around in odd corners and bring a sense of heightened excitement in children as they anticipate this magical visit of a library that comes along, and then vanishes, only to be summoned again, a week, fortnight or month later. Just in time to finish the books you borrow, and ready for you to find new delights on board.

 

 

 

Making a gateway of knowledge for knowledge sorters

It is a recursive idea that people who sort knowledge and information and make it available for other people need knowledge and information themselves. Not only that, but in order to access it quickly and easily, they require someone to sort it and make it available for them saving their time.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, and sometimes people don’t, what I mean is that librarians, library staff and information professionals spend their working time ensuring that other people can access the information that they need. However, they also need support, they need some professional evidence to develop their own knowledge, skills, interests and improve the services that they give to other people.

The Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) is aware of that need and they have been giving support and training opportunities since 1877 as the Library Association and 1958 as  the Institute of Information Scientists. These bodies merged in 2002. CILIP believes that it should be an “authoritative source of data and evidence about information management and libraries” and “an active partner in providing a research and evidence framework for the sector as a whole”. Therefore it commissioned us at Evidence Base in partnership with Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University to look at the possibility of a portal of information about information, knowledge about knowledge: a place where information professionals can go to get find authoritative evidence to back up practises, procedures and new developments. CILIP also asked if we could make some suggestions of how such an enterprise could be sustainably funded.

Together we examined the online resources that exist for other organisations. The American Library Association’s LARK is a good example. We looked at things that could be of use to information professionals of all fields and had a sneaky peak at what other professional associations were providing. More than that, we actually asked people what they wanted, what would really be useful for them. And the answers were:

Essential Features:
Case studies
Data sets/statistics
Open access search engines and repositories
Research reports
Regular updating
A variety of entry points to evidence e.g. sector, use and topic
Sharing options e.g. Twitter

Recommended Features:

Summaries or structured abstracts of key papers and reports
Sector specific resource
Indicators of rigour
Links to other CILIP resources

They also suggested some Additional Features:
Comments facility
Ability to export references
Briefing documents for different stakeholders
Alerting services

We suggested that the best method of funding such an undertaking would be by a collaborative approach, with funding gathered from a variety of organisations.

We are delighted that CILIP and now considering what can be done to achieve this important resource for librarians, library staff and information professionals. The full report is on the CILIP website.

 

IRUS-UK Survey 2018

Evidence Base conducted the IRUS-UK Community Survey from January to March this year. The survey is sent to IRUS-UK members for a number of reasons. It is an evaluation of the resource and the team behind it. It a form of communication with the IRUS-UK members and it is a great way to get ideas for the future development of the resource.

This year we had some particularly interesting results, some of the questions were more open than in previous years, and that meant that IRUS-UK members could express their thoughts about repository usage statistics gathering in a general way, telling us all about the issues that they face.  Some common barriers to collecting repository statistics are:

• Unreliability of statistics from the repository’s software packages
• The need to provide and report statistics in greater depth and details to institutions’ management
• Issues surrounding the use of statistics without context – a lack of understanding from some people reading the statistics

Pleasingly, many of the people who told us about these issues also told us that IRUS-UK is already helping to overcome these barriers.

“Down barriers!” by Oleg Afonin is licensed under CC BY 2.0

It is doing this because it has:

• Reliable and authoritative statistics and comparable data
• High quality support from the IRUS-UK team
• An easy to use system

Some useful suggestions for the development of IRUS-UK were made, including having more data visualisations with enhanced features and additional reports with increased downloading options.

The boring statistics about IRUS-UK were as follows:

• 85% of respondents were “very” or “fairly” satisfied with IRUS-UK
• 79% of respondents felt IRUS-UK has improved their statistical reporting
• 63% of respondents consider that IRUS-UK has enabled reporting that they could not do previously
• 60% of respondents use IRUS-UK for identifying trends and patterns

When asked if they would recommend IRUS-UK to a colleague, the majority of respondents said that they would.

The IRUS-UK team are currently working on how and when these things can be added to IRUS UK. For the report, follow this link: http://irus.mimas.ac.uk/documents/IRUS-UK_Annual_Community_Survey_March_2018.pdf

Libraries promote potentially dangerous books

Last week it was the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week when libraries across America hold a variety of events to draw attention to attempts of banning books from schools, bookshops and libraries. The ALA always appear to me to be activist librarians and the organisation of Banned Books Week is an outward expression of their stance on freedom of information, upholding the right of free speech and an individual’s right to read. A truly objective librarian does not censor the reading matter of other people however much they dislike it themselves. For example, I would ban all Mills and Boon books, but I concede that, for some people, reading Mills and Boon brings pleasure.

Banned Books Week started in 1982 when librarians noticed that, increasingly, the content of many books were being challenged. They found that although the content of books were being questioned, many more people fought against the books being banned outright. The ALA website has links to lists of these books and actually some may surprise you.

Which of these books faced being banned?

This year, the UK have been joining in, with the British Library holding a discussion event on Censorship and the Author  and Islington library compiling their own list of Banned Books. Their list suggests that if the challenges to the books had succeeded we  may not have had the Harry Potter series, the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time or Roald Dahl’s Matilda. However, London is SO behind the times. Fife Libraries in Kirkcaldy held a Banned Books event LAST year.

This event was not scheduled for Banned Books Week but was part of  Book Week Scotland which is held each November. Fife Libraries’ “Banned Books and Prohibition Cocktails” event was rather more fun than a debate on censorship, it took the form of a Speak Easy, and teamed up local gin producers with the library to offer prohibition style cocktails as well as book readings and the books themselves available to borrow – presumably in plain covers! It appears that the local constabulary were not invited. I am not sure about how much more aware the good (or bad?) citizens of Fife become about the importance of freedom of speech or reading, and the issue with censorship, but I do know that many more people became aware of the library with the event attracting some people who did not usually visit libraries. Hopefully the event opened their eyes to the great delights of of literature and expanded their thoughts enough for them to come back and explore the library shelves for the “dangerous”, potentially forbidden books.

CILIP Conference, Day two – Reaching people.

The theme that I have picked out from the second day of the conference is the way that libraries can reach everyone. This is specially true of public libraries. Neil MacInnes, Strategic Lead-Libraries, Galleries & Culture, Manchester City Council spoke of the work that Manchester Libraries are doing to bring information and literature to the people of Manchester. This has required quite a lot of revision of the service but they appear to have succeeded in getting more people using the libraries and perhaps significantly, more people using the items that have been held in archives for many decades.

For example, the geographic locations of the branch libraries were compared with the current centres of habitation, and it was realised that some libraries were not where the people are. This meant moving some of the services, some be co-located with other services. The Central Library, which was built in 1938, had become unloved, and so it was completely refurbished. Such effort brought in many more visitors. The overall remit is not merely getting people IN to libraries, but is also getting books OUT to people. They had a Shakespeare folio in the archives which had been seen by very few researchers. Now it has its own taxi and security staff and is taken to branch libraries where students and school children can see it. It has been viewed more times in the past few years than it has been for decades.

“Manchester Central Library” by Frankie Roberto is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Work like this is so important to show that libraries are not dead archives for the intellectual only. Showing a precious object can inspire and stimulate a sense of history as well as showing off treasures to be found in ordinary libraries. Manchester is managing to shout out about their achievements. After Neil’s talk a delegate said to me “Oh, the Central Library from my city does many of these things too.” but that other city is being quiet about their achievement.  It is important these days to be Loud Librarians, to be one of the strident voices clamouring for attention and funding, and to demonstrate the impact on society and learning that libraries have.

And that brings me to the second workshop that I attended, “Loud Librarians” by Selena Killick (Open University) and Frankie Wilson (Bodleian Library, Oxford). And they are. Loud, that is. This workshop was very well attended, so many of us wanting to be loud!! Selena and Frankie had us working (always a good thing for a workshop), and considering:

• Who were our stakeholders
• What were the main outcomes they wanted
• How we could record how we addressed those outcomes – not just numbers

It was a very practical session and I will certainly use their techniques, so simple, logical and effective.  They told us how we could demonstrate the ways that libraries are reaching out to people.

I then attended a series of seminars on the themes of Information Literacy and Literacy and Learning and the presentation that stood out was Dr Konstantina Martzoukou’s (Robert Gordon University) talk about trying to reach “Syrian New Scots” – how to give essential information to Syrian refugees in Scotland. The project was working with groups to find out what information they wanted and considered ways of giving them the information. The plight of the refugees was made very clear by the inclusion of a poignant video showing the city of Homs, before the current conflict and the devastation the conflict has caused.

Jason Vit of the Reading Agency outlined the current work that they are doing to engage people with reading. This included working with bus companies to put up posters on busses, and having “pop up” bookshops in certain places. They are developing “Hubs”, certain towns, where they are concentrating efforts to increase the literacy of disadvantaged communities. The Reading Agency take a down to earth and innovative approach to reaching people, wherever they are.

So, this conference consolidated my belief that libraries do get information out to people and that there are other organisations that we could work with to do that. We also have to realise that we are the vehicle by which the ordinary members of society can have objective, authoritative information, to balance the subtle persuasion of  internet giants or the noise of press and politicians. It means that we have to be very Loud Librarians shout about our services and successes instead of being quietly complacent.

“Schreeuwen / Schreeuw / Shouting / Shout” by Sebastiaan ter Burg is licensed under CC BY 2.0