a static library. That assumes we have enough static libraries in the locations they should be. But population centres have changed, there are new towns, and com- muting and shopping habits have changed. Ordnance Survey and the Office for National Statistics recently published research on the High Streets in Great Britain. Although there is a perception that high streets are in decline, they have recently seen greater population growth than non-high street areas. They have also seen an increase in the number of businesses. But it is true that retail on high streets are in decline, compared to retail in other areas. Libraries don’t need to copy retail outlets, but many of the people who once visited libraries while shopping will now go to other places. Mobile library services offer an op- portunity to target new areas, based on data such as that provided by ONS and Ordnance Survey. This could be retail parks during shopping times, towns with significant population growth, and business parks during working hours.
Live tracking of mobiles Public transport has benefited from live tracking. Being able to see when a bus or train is due to arrive has meant people are alerted to delays. Not that it isn’t still frustrating when the bus is late! Many library vehicles will already have GPS devices fitted, for the service to track their vehicles. Making this data available would provide real-time estimation of when the mobile library is due. The availability of GPS on mobile and tablet devices could also provide a cheap alternative to fitted trackers. Similar solutions are already in place for local government services, such as school transport. In this example par- ents have tracking links to show when their child is due to arrive home, and why they may be delayed.
October-November 2019
Having tracking information would be useful. But it would also be a great advocacy tool for mobile libraries. It would be lovely to see an online map showing all the mobile libraries in the UK, moving around as they visit stops. Despite closures, there are still hundreds of mobile vehicles, and thousands of stop locations.
On-demand services
Some libraries already combine their at-home services with the mobile library. The driver can deliver books to personal addresses while on their round. Services will adjust their mobile library timetables and routes to accommodate personal stops. This presents a problem. Some of the library services don’t publish any public timetable, as public stops are mixed with personal ones. People wishing to know when the mobile library visits must phone the service to find out.
Better coordination and data standards can ensure public stops are separated from private ones. But there are other possibilities to provide ‘on-demand’ ser- vices. Mobile libraries could allow citizens to request that the mobile library stop, either at their house, or at pre-assigned ‘request stops’. A phone application could show the available stops and allow people to send a notification to the driver that they’d like to use them.
Notification of cancellations There are many things that can stop a mobile library service from running, such as poor weather conditions, and vehicle faults.
The personalised care for regular users means that services will often go to great lengths to inform people of any cancel- lations. This can include phoning every regular user on the route to tell them the vehicle won’t be visiting.
This relies on one method of communi- cation and takes a long time, phoning each person in turn.
GOV.UK recently released a
new service called ‘Notify’. This is a platform that provides email and SMS notification services for public sector organisations. It includes unlimited free emails, and 25,000 free SMS messages per year. This provides a cost effective and easy method to send out alerts to all subscribed users in the event of cancellations. As with route optimisation, having auto- mated notification facilities doesn’t mean the library service should rely only on that method. A personal phone call for some users may still be the most appropriate action.
Integration into assistants Using a service like Notify would be effective. But information on delays and cancellations don’t always need to be delivered by library services. When catching a train, I don’t check the train operator for updates, or rely on a phone call from the station if the train is cancelled. I use Google Assistant, which wakes me up in morning, tells me if I should take an umbrella, and tells me how the trains are doing. If any delays occur while I’m getting ready it will alert me to these. Voice assistant services are just one way of using data, but the options chosen by users don’t need to be decided by the library service. Services just need to be responsible for publishing the data in a common format.
Most of these things are possible with little effort. But as with most digital trans- formation, the difficulty is in coordination and collaboration. But I believe it’s some- thing that we can achieve, and that there are many possible benefits from small changes. IP
References
Libraries on the Move:
https://bit.ly/2qmRvG3 High Streets in Great Britain:
https://bit.ly/2HZxufa
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