A mobile library service that better meets people’s needs

New routes for the county’s five mobile libraries are now (4 April 2011) in place, following a recent extensive review of the service to ensure that it is ‘fit for the future’.

Nearly 900 responses were received as part of this review, set up by the Mobile Library Task and Finish Group.  This cross-party group carried out extensive consultation and analysis and sought best practice from other authorities on looking at new ways on how the service could be shaped to meet the changing needs of local communities.

This important rural service has not been reviewed in this way for a number of years. Therefore, as patterns of use have changed, community libraries have responded by improving their opening hours, but these changes have not been reflected by the mobile service.

By continuing to visit communities on a fortnightly basis, and change those who were visited weekly to fortnightly, the service has been re-vamped to better meet people’s changing demands and preferences.  It’ll also ensure that the service will continue to be available for use by local people, despite other funding cuts.

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for culture and leisure, said:

“For many people living in our rural communities, mobile libraries provide the only means of gaining regular access to the library and information service.

“We understand this and we ensured peoples views were taken into consideration as part of the review.  We hope that by making these changes we can continue to deliver an excellent, sustainable service that people want and need.”

Martin Bennett, Chair of the Mobile Library Task and Finish Group, said:

“I recognise that any change is difficult, but the pattern of use of the mobile libraries has changed over the last 30 years.  All the evidence to the working group, backed by the advice of the officers, was that we needed a service which reflected that change.  It was the clear wish of the members on the working group that this should be evolution and not a revolution in the number and type of stops throughout the rural areas.”

The changes to the sevice have made it much more efficient by reducing the number of vehicles from eight to five and the number of stops from about 670 to about 400, and will save the council £120,000 a year.

Click here for information on the new stops.