On a rainy morning, residents of Council House, a low-income senior living facility on Capitol Hill, are getting their monthly library fix.
Every third Tuesday of the month, The Seattle Public Library’s Mobile Services team unloads the Bookmobile and sets up a pop-up library in the community access room of the building. Residents trickle in to pick up holds, browse shelves of books, DVDs, and CDs, check out items, and to catch up with each other and the three Library team members who are staffing the stop.
As Knate, a longtime resident of Council House, will tell you, the combination is magical.
“It’s an incredible service,” he says. “They bring a lot of smiles and they love Interacting with everyone. It’s really a special event.”
Knate, who brings a wheeled cart for his checkouts, always visits the Mobile Services stop with his wife.
“I love literature and books,” he says. “It’s such an essential part of who we are. Libraries and books are infinite. There’s always something to discover.”
Although not an official “branch” in the system, the Library’s Mobile Services unit circulates as many materials as a smaller branch library, around 59,000 items annually. Five days a week, Mobile Services staff travel to every corner of the city in Bookmobile vans to bring Library materials and resources to people who cannot access the Library in other ways.
Prioritizing visits to facilities in under-resourced communities, every month, they visit 70 facilities for older adults or people with disabilities, 31 preschools and two tiny house villages. They package up items to send to 66 Books by Mail patrons, and make monthly doorstop deliveries to 30 others.
“Mobile Services looks like one thing, but it’s actually a bunch of different services,” explains Robin Rousu, managing librarian for Mobile Services.
Personalized service infuses every aspect of their work. This might look like an initial conversation with a patron to determine the right service for them, or wheeling a cart with materials room-to-room at a nursing home to deliver cozy mysteries or books about architecture to residents who are physically unable to leave their room.
Rousu says that the team’s ultimate goal is connection. The walk-on Bookmobile stops at preschools connect young readers with positive experiences around books. For older adults, lobby stops form unique and essential connections to books, DVDs and other resources, and to each other.
“One of the best things about the lobby stops is it creates a little community gathering for neighbors, and sometimes that’s the only time of the month that they actually see each other and talk and chat and get to know each other,” Rousu says. “We keep people connected to part of the world.”
At the Council House stop, this sense of community is visible. Patrons browse together and sit down at tables to review their finds. Library staff members circulate the room to restock shelves and help patrons find what they want, chatting, joking, and answering questions.
Nancy, who has lived at Council House for 19 years, says, “It’s wonderful that they come here.” She says it’s been harder for her to get to a physical library and appreciates help ordering e-books through Libby, too.
Marilyn, another resident, says that the personal touch is really special. “What I love is that the Library staff always remember our names. And if a resident isn’t there that month, they’ll ask about them.”
“What I love is that the Library staff always remember our names. And if a resident isn’t there that month, they’ll ask about them.”
The whole team is amazing, says Rousu of her staff, “including how much they care about the patrons and how much the patrons really depend upon and appreciate the service.”
Mobile Services helps patrons connect in other ways, including loaning tablets and Wi-Fi hot spots. Patrons report that this access has allowed them to keep up with social and religious connections, shop online, and more.
Rousu has had many experiences that have illustrated the value of this connection in her 17 years with Mobile Services, but one in particular is unforgettable. Back in 2010, she was part of a team that arrived at an older adults’ residence for a monthly stop. As they began setting up, they noticed something different.
“There was a memorial service going on in the lobby,” she remembers. “It was for one of the residents, a library patron, who had passed away.”
The patron’s neighbors had intentionally planned the memorial service during the lobby stop “because the Bookmobile was one of the most important things in her life,” Rousu says.
“She had very limited speech, but this was the time when she really was connected to the outside world the most.”
Fast facts about Mobile Services
Vehicles: Four, including one all-electric Bookmobile
Monthly visits: Mobile Services visits 31 preschools, 72 adult facilities/buildings and two tiny house villages a month, serving 2,700 people. Adult facilities primarily serve seniors, including low-income people and people with disabilities, and include retirement homes, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult family homes, senior centers, one hospital and the King County Correctional Facility.
Preschools served are public programs for low-income families, private programs that have at least 25% subsidized students, or programs that serve primarily students with disabilities. See eligibility criteria for Mobile Services.
Deliveries: Books by Mail to 66 individuals; monthly deliveries to 30 home service patrons.
People served: 1,100 preschoolers and 1,600 older adults a year, as well as around 15 other individuals.
Checkouts: Mobile Services patrons check out 60,000 items a year, and place 12,000 holds.
Find out more at www.spl.org/MobileServices.
– Elisa M., Communications
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