#21: Serve the people who can't come in

From Emma:

I have mixed feelings about how we are doing in this area at my current library. On the one hand, I’m proud of what I accomplished and think it’s significant, but it also really highlights what a long way most libraries have to go. Before I talk about my project, I want to mention a few other initiatives I’ve seen or heard about at other libraries:

Chicago Public Library lets you submit a scanned copy of your ID to sign up for an “eCard” that lets you access databases and ebooks, eaudiobooks, etc. without ever setting foot in a library branch. Obviously most people don’t have scanners at home, but many people have a friend or family member who can get their ID scanned on their behalf (they may take a photo, also—the website doesn’t say much and you can’t test it without providing a Chicago address.)
The Capital Area District Libraries did ‘books by mail,’ which is exactly what it sounds like. Patrons had to provide extra documentation attesting that they couldn’t physically travel to the library, but once they did they could get materials mailed directly to their homes. You know I’m generally against barriers to entry, but this was an expensive program to run so I understand why they needed to keep it restricted.
Many libraries take responsibility for stocking ‘libraries’ elsewhere in their neighborhoods: at rec centers, at senior centers, and in those Little Free Libraries you see in people’s front yards and in parks. This can be a great use of donated books that you don’t want to add to your collection, and can double, triple, etc. the number of places people can go to access books—someone may not be able to walk five blocks to catch a bus to your library branch, but may be able to take the shuttle from the front door of their assisted living facility to the front door of the senior center, which contains a little in-house library.

Dallas Public Library does not do books by mail or have a bookmobile anymore, or do real online cards (they will issue you a temporary one so that you can request items and then finish your card signup when you come to pick them up), but we do support a lot of small book collections around town. At my previous branch, we also started a small ‘pop-up library service’ at three local senior housing complexes. This was my initiative, but I was fortunate to have my manager’s support and administrative support.

Our library management system (Polaris Leap) is web-based, so it can run on laptops, tablets, etc. without the software loaded onto it. Each DPL branch has a Microsoft Surface. I would take the Surface and a rolling cart full of popular books, DVDs, and audiobooks, to the common room of a senior center on a specific day at a specific time. While there, I could sign people up for library cards (if the place had wifi), check out the materials I’d brought to them, and accept returns from my last visit.

Here are the details:

Our normal loan period is three weeks for books and one week for movies, but I got special permission to extend these loans to approximately 4 weeks (i.e., to my next visit).
Because I knew overdue items were a risk, I tried to take items that, while popular, were a little bit older, so that they were unlikely to have hold requests on them as the due dates approached. Our system automatically renews items two days before the due date if there are no requests on them, so this avoided most overdue fees.
Since I couldn’t issue receipts, I pre-printed bookmarks with the message: “Your items are due at the next library visit, on DATE from START TIME to END TIME. You can also return them any time before that at LIBRARY ADDRESS. If you need help or want to keep them longer, please call LIBRARY PHONE NUMBER.” For each checkout, I’d give the patron a bookmark and write the number of items they’d borrowed on the bookmark for their reference.
One location could accommodate me for a proper visit only every two months, so at that location, the social worker collected everyone’s books at the front desk, and I’d swing by on the off months just to pick them up (I had to modify my due date bookmarks accordingly).

This was mostly a gratifyingly easy and frankly fun program to do. I got to know some of the regular patrons, and also found that some of them who were more mobile started coming to the branch—once they had had a good experience with the library, they were more motivated to get there for additional visits. I did have only a small selection to choose from, but I pretty quickly got a sense of what was popular and what wasn’t, so I was able to tailor my pool of materials to each location. I did not place or deliver hold requests because it just wasn’t feasible with the pace of how the holds process normally works, but I made notes if people asked me about particular titles or authors and tried to bring those materials on my next visit if they were available.

The biggest hurdle I ran into was that I had no way to take cash payments or do other things to clear people’s cards if they were blocked. Lots of the people I visited owed the library too much money to be able to borrow materials. We do have the option to pay fines online, and I could help walk patrons though that on my tablet, but that requires a credit or debit card and lots of the patrons at the places I was visited didn’t have those, or they were on a fixed income and just couldn’t afford to pay. (Dallas has since abolished overdue fines, and I think that would make this easier if I were to start this up again now at my ‘new’ branch.) What I ended up doing was filling my tote up about 75% of the way with library materials, and using the remaining quarter of the space for donated books, which I would give away to people who showed up to the library visit and owed too much money to check out, or who weren’t able to sign up for cards (lack of the needed paperwork to get a card was also an issue, especially since many of these patrons no longer drove so they did not have drivers’ licenses.). Obviously it wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least I was able to offer something to those residents.

All in all, this was a very easy program to implement. It does require some equipment, namely a car (in my case, I used my own car and did not claim mileage, but the city would have reimbursed me if I’d bothered to file the paperwork) and, ideally, a computer with your LMS so you can do live card sign-up and checkout. You could do everything on paper and go back and enter it after your visit, but that would be a LOT more work—I did it once or twice when I couldn’t access wifi, and it was much more time-consuming (not to mention I ended up finding that some of the people who had signed up for cards already had them, and owed enough money that I shouldn’t have checked them out). If you want to do this and have to do it on paper, I’d strongly recommend taking a two-person team on your visits.