Satellites

Satellite locations have been on my mind recently. Once upon a time, my library had two bookmobiles which motored about the city and county, distributing books like largesse. It was all very picturesque and rose colored (because I've never been in any way involved) but then budgets got tight and circulation dropped and people started to point out that we are a city library, not a county library, and those trips far out into the countryside to deliver some Nora Roberts were maaaaaybe stretching the budget a bit far.

And so we parked one of the bookmobiles in an outlying community, that had no library of its own but was a heavily used bookmobile stop. It was outrageously successful. For one reason or another, the other bookmobile got parked at a grocery store in town for awhile and was also very popular. Then it went back to puttering about the Wisconsin countryside, being all cute and whatnot. Then budgets got even tighter, circulation dropped more, etc etc. So as of Labor Day, the second bookmobile is going back to the grocery store and will be parked. We're calling them "satellite locations" instead of "non-mobile bookmobiles" and so far a lot of people (in town) are very happy. People in the country...well, not so much but their taxes don't fund us. Sorry buddies.

Anyways, the idea of a location run primarily by volunteers, with a librarian out every once and while to spruce it up and direct those volunteers, is quite interesting to me. It doesn't offer all the other services we associate with libraries--reference, reader's advisory, programming, storytime, computers--but it gets back to basics: books. They are so popular! Then I saw this BBC story about a library in a pub! Gosh, I wish we had that here. I think there is a lot in common between Yorkshire and central-Wisconsin. Really! Anyways, watch it. I especially like that the man who runs this pub library acknowledges that volunteers and bestsellers alone do not make a library! You need the real library services. OR, as he really points out--people need their government to make things happen.

So remember that as we head into primary season here folks. Government isn't always evil, and they do provide some services (like libraries!) that are quite helpful.

photo source-- shout out to my sheffield ladies!