Urban Vs. Rural

Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library Bookmobile 1991

        The bookmobile service within the Halifax Public Libraries serves residents of many locations in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). Such areas include Musquodoboit Valley, Lake Echo, Eastern Passage, and Porter’s Lake. The role of the mobile library is to provide library materials for both adults and children. There are approximately 5,000 materials offered to patrons, and they are replaced every two weeks. Materials that are available on the bookmobile represent a portion of materials (books, CDs, DVDs, magazines) offered in HRM library branches. Patrons can place holds on materials from any branch with the assistance of branch staff or online and can pick them up on the bookmobile. 

      Ultimately, the bookmobile’s role within the HRM is to provide library services for those who are unable to get to a branch, or those who find it more convenient than travelling the distance to one of 14 branches.

      Recently, the government decided to cut the bookmobile service in the HRM due to a number of factors. However, after much debate and backlash, the bookmobile service was given a second chance and now will run for another year. It is important to analyze statistics in order to understand why this decision was made in the first place.  According to a recent library review, the mobile library service has been declining for several years, and many residents in bookmobile areas are already using branches. Approximately 170 families in the HRM use the service, and it costs over $300,000 per year to run. This is a high cost considering only one percent of the roughly 5 million items borrowed from branches each year are borrowed from the mobile library. Recent statistics for this year are even more grim, supporting the government’s decision to end the service. For 2010/2011, only 1.3 percent of the 4.9 million materials circulated were checked out from the bookmobile. Also, a recent survey has indicated that only 175 people in Nova Scotia currently use the service. Therefore, taxpayers are left to cover a $290,000 operating bill for the small portion of people that use the service.

       Although statistics show that the majority of HRM residents do not use the mobile service as much as in previous years, there are still some areas that will suffer from its demise.  For example, in areas such as Fall River, public schools depend on the service to augment thin budgets for their own libraries, and senior citizens use the service for ease of access. However, the HRM library system is ready to offer alternatives for when the book mobile service is terminated in a year’s time. For example, rural areas are now being assigned a library branch where they can use the books by mail service. Some areas in NS run successful bookmobile services, even having increases of over 5 percent per year; however the large majority of HRM use other methods for obtaining library materials.

Colchester-East Hants Bookmobile 1991

References

Halifax Public Libraries. (n.d). Retrieved June 1, 2011, from http://www.halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/branches/locations/mobile-library.html

Haligonia. (27, April 2011). HRM Cutting the Only Remaining Bookmobile in the City This     Year. Retrieved  May 15, 2011, from headlines/19768-hrm-bookmobile-cut-discontinued-halifax-library.html

MacDonald, B. (2011, May 30). Technology Speeds by the Beloved but CostlyBookmobile.  Dartmouth-HRM East Community Herald, pp 3,5.

Pictures courtesy of Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library