Mobile library

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mobile library of the Hanover City Library
Mobile library of the Dresden City Libraries
Interior view of the Celle district mobile library
The Warrington Perambulating Library, illustration from 1860 from The Illustrated London News
Car library of the America House in Mannheim around 1952
Mobile library in Dresden-Dobritz (1970)
Book bus of the Danish library in southern Schleswig , illustrated by Bo Odgård Iversen with historical events
Book bus Nicaragua

A mobile library , including mobile library , mobile library , Bibliobus , bookmobile , Büchereibus or circulating library called, is a mobile public library or public library to supply metropolitan suburbs or rural areas. In some cities, mobile libraries are used to specifically encourage children to read. They serve to promote reading . Some book buses go to primary schools during school hours and thus serve a similar purpose to school libraries .

The type of vehicle used varies. Converted buses are used in many cities, and trucks of different sizes are often used. The Budapest tram , the Edmonton tram and the Munich tram even used special trams for this purpose. This special vehicle drives to stops according to a fixed timetable so that users can borrow and return media there. In addition, titles can be ordered from the library's holdings and reserved, and orders from other libraries are also possible in most cases. A mobile library not only offers books, CDs , video cassettes , CD-ROMs and DVDs are also available for loan.

The stopping intervals are usually weekly, but sometimes more often.

history

19th century

The American School Library is one of the first known traveling libraries in the USA. It was a matter of several identical book collections that were sponsored in 1839 by the Harper brothers (including publishers of Harper's Weekly ). The collections, which were primarily intended for use in the new settlement areas, were moved from place to place using various means of transport. The National Museum of American History now has what is believed to be the last complete set of this traveling library including the accompanying wooden carrying case.

In Victorian England the monthly The British Workman reported in 1857 on a new type of handcart traveling library that regularly supplied eight towns in Cumbria . This was maintained by a merchant and philanthropist named George Moore , with the aim of "spreading good literature among the rural population".

Another mobile library established in Great Britain during this period was the "Warrington Perambulating Library" launched on November 15, 1858. This was founded by the Warrington Mechanics' Institute in Cheshire , which in an effort to give its library a wider reach, raised around £ 250 in donations, bought a horse-drawn carriage, loaded it with books and sought to have it weekly "on every doorstep in Warrington and to send to the environment ”.

20th century

1905 were in the state of Maryland in Washington County ( USA Books awarded) of a horse-drawn overland truck. After the First World War, the first motorized libraries existed in the USA and Great Britain . Until the Second World War, the mobile library system in the USA and England grew slowly but steadily.

America began to develop more rapidly during and after World War II. In Fairfax County , Virginia , for example, a mobile library was set up in 1940 with the help of a converted delivery van sponsored by the Works Progress Administration .

In 1944 there were around 300 book mobiles in the United States of America, as many as 919 in 1956 and around 1200 in 1962.

There are mobile libraries in many other countries as well, such as Norway , Sweden , Finland , Denmark , Italy , Austria , Switzerland , France , Spain , Luxembourg and Belgium . In Nicaragua , a book bus operated by Pan y Arte supplies remote village communities, schools and prisons.

In Germany , the first regular mobile library was operated by the Worms City Library between 1926 and 1928 , but it was only the Dresden City Library's mobile library founded in 1929 that was permanent. There were already forerunners, such as the motorized library opened in Saarland in 1927 , which was more of a mobile library magazine . The loan usually took place in a permanent building.

Mobile libraries became more widespread in Germany from the mid-1960s. In the course of savings made by cities, districts and municipalities, the number of mobile libraries has been falling continuously since the 1990s. The network of mobile libraries is densest in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia , Schleswig-Holstein (e.g. mobile library in the Ostholstein district ) and Baden-Württemberg . This is followed by the states of Bavaria , Saxony-Anhalt , Saxony and Lower Saxony .

In some cases, the mobile libraries also work together with schools, in that the schoolyards serve as stopping points and the students can borrow books during a break, so reading is to be promoted.

The first international mobile library congress (IFBK) in Germany with 237 participants from 15 countries took place on September 6th and 7th, 2019 in Hanover . The organizer was the mobile libraries specialist commission in the German Library Association in cooperation with the VGH Foundation and the City of Hanover.

Special forms

From 1927 to 1970 a tram was used as a traveling library in Munich . The distribution of stops was determined by the existing track network. The library car with the number 24 was given to the Hanover Tramway Museum after it was taken out of service and was brought back to Munich by the friends of the Munich Tramway Museum in April 2015 to restore it for presentation in the MVG Museum . There were other trams than traveling libraries in Budapest and Edmonton.

In Norway and Sweden, in addition to mobile libraries, library ships are used in some provinces and cities due to the geographical conditions. Sweden also has four railway libraries in operation in the north of the country. Another library on rails was the Appenzeller Bibliobahn , which brought books to various villages in Eastern Switzerland for 20 years.

In Kenya there is a library that is transported on the back of camels . In Venezuela , mules are used as mobile libraries in the high mountains, so-called bibliomulas.

literature

Web links

Commons : Mobile Libraries  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Fahrbücherei  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Bücherbus  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wanderbüchereiwagen 24: Return home after 42 years , on tramreport.de
  2. ↑ Michael Olmert, Christopher De Hamel: The Infinite Library, Timeless and Incorruptible . In: The Smithsonian book of books . 1st edition. Smithsonian Books, Washington, DC 2003, ISBN 0-89599-030-X , pp. 198 ff .
  3. ^ The George Moore Connection - Perambulating Library. Mealsgate.org.uk, February 1, 1857, accessed August 14, 2018 .
  4. ^ Ian Orton: An illustrated history of mobile library services in the United Kingdom. With notes on traveling libraries and early public library transport . Branch and Mobile Libraries Group of the Library Association, Sudbury 1980, ISBN 0-85365-640-1 , pp. 96 .
  5. ↑ Christopher Aspin: The first industrial society. Lancashire, 1750-1850 . Carnegie Publishing, Preston 1995, ISBN 1-85936-016-5 , pp. 167 .
  6. ↑ Nan Netherton, Donald Sweig, Janice Artemel, Patricia P. Hickin, Patrick Reed: Fairfax County, Virginia. A history . 1st edition. Fairfax County Board of Subpervisors, Fairfax, ISBN 0-9601630-1-8 , pp. 608 .
  7. ^ History of the Worms City Library; accessed August 20, 2018
  8. ↑ Chronicle. Dresden City Libraries, archived from the original on December 8, 2013 ; accessed on August 20, 2018 .
  9. ↑ #IFBK - International Mobile Library Congress // International Mobile Library Congress in Hannover 2019 , fahrbibliothek.de
  10. ↑ Journal Nahverkehr in München - Tram Special No. 2. No. 9701, Munich, GeraNova-Verlag, undated (approx. 1993), ISSN  0340-7071 , p. 66. → Tram Munich, series C / D
  11. ↑ a b Wanderbüchereiwagen 24: Return home after 42 years on tramreport.de
  12. ↑ From 2005 to 2016 as a weblog at fahrbibliothek.twoday.net