Library Chat: Library’s Homebound Services proves popular

By Medicine Hat News on October 13, 2017.

The Medicine Hat Public Library is a popular place to visit, as our annual report statistics show and as the user survey tells us. Attendance gate counts at the library entrances show an impressive 240,000 visits each year. Some people, however, find it difficult to get downtown to the library in person so the library provides a service that still allows them to use the resources.

Homebound Services is the method that the library uses to ensure that books, audiobooks, and other resources get to the people who cannot get to the library in person. Under the leadership of the Homebound Services co-ordinator a number of volunteers connect these patrons with the materials that they need or like to have.

Volunteers visit the people in their homes or at the hospital while others look after the bins of materials that are delivered to the various seniors’ residences around the city. The volunteers get to know the reading interests of the clients and often become friends as well.

Collections that are popular for homebound clients include the large print books with type sizes that are larger than normal; audiobooks which are regular books in CD format that are read by the author, a famous person, or someone else; and movies, documentaries, or television shows available in DVD format.

Some interesting figures about the Homebound Services: there are 41 regular clients plus six who receive books occasionally. Twenty-five volunteers deliver the books; three volunteers read to their clients; and another eight volunteers take book deposits to senior facilities on a monthly basis.

Each month the library delivers materials to six seniors facilities with each shipment having 25 to 100 items; two facilities receive deliveries every three months with 150-200 items in each shipment.

The Homebound Services also provides special materials for print disabled patrons that are made available through the federal and provincial government agencies. The library receives about 100 of these “daisy discs” each year to keep the collection fresh while other titles can be ordered upon request.

If you are interested in making use of this valuable service, or if you would like to volunteer, please contact the library. The time involved is only about two hours each month and it is a fun way to connect the library with appreciative users.

Dec. 3 is the International Day of Disabled Persons and in commemoration the library will be hosting a Library Theatre Accessibility Celebration on Dec. 7 by showing the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Audiologists will be in attendance and we will be showing persons with hearing aids how to use the new hearing loop equipment that will be installed in the newly renovated theatre. The movie will also have closed captioning.

Keith Walker is head of fiction services at the Medicine Hat Public Library.

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