There is a post on LISNews today about “Suitcase Libraries” in South Africa. These are basically small book collections in suitcases which are distributed to preschools to help encourage reading in areas with low literacy. The original article is here.
Viewing this caused me to think of two things:
- The traveling libraries used by the Lighthouse Service, and
- What if public libraries were to purchase several rolling carts, place an interesting range of books within the carts, and arrange to rotate these carts among various retirement and nursing homes? This could be combined with the ability to request materials (which could be delivered with the carts). The rotation could match the library’s checkout period (2 weeks, 3 weeks, etc.), and rotation of the carts could be done by library staff one day each period. During each cycle, one cart’s worth of books would be changed out for fresh material. I suspect that this could be a terrific service for a library to provide, given the interest in organizing it.
Just a thought!
