Barriere residents who are shut-in or have mobility issues will no longer have to visit the library for their reading fix.
A new Library Home Service pilot project has been launched by the Thompson Nicola Regional District in Barriere, and Clinton allowing residents to request a list of books, audiobooks or magazines - or even just their favourite authors - and local librarian Pam Rudd will pull them together and send them out with a community volunteer.
Based on a popular program in Kamloops, this service provides free delivery of library materials to patrons who are unable to visit the library due to mobility or health issues.
Carefully screened volunteers have signed up to make book deliveries to residents once a month. The TNRD said programs like this “support rural sustainability and enable residents to age in place in their own home and community.
“It’s really a meals-on-wheels type of service, but in place of food, its materials such as large print, audiobooks, or anything else that the TNRL lends,” said Emily Olsen, the TNRD library’s coordinator of customer experience.
The Barriere library already offers a take-out book service to people, whose friends or relatives collect their books now. The new program will open up the service to everyone in the community, especially those who don’t have the additional support network.
“Library Home Service has been available in the Kamloops libraries for many years and I am excited to be able to offer the service to our Barriere patrons,” says Rudd, “Potential patrons can contact the Barriere Library for more information at 250-672-5811.”
Plans are in the works to expand this program to all TNRD communities this year. For more information visit the TNRL website at www.tnrl.ca/accessibility or contact your local library.
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