Lobby Stop Pilot

The Bookmobile has successful stops at several retirement homes in Iowa City, but we have noticed that there is a population of patrons at these stops who are not comfortable navigating the Bookmobile. There are also retirement homes that can't accommodate the Bookmobile due to a lack of suitable parking. Staff have been thinking about how we can serve this population. One idea is a Lobby Stop Program, which provides library services in the comfort of the hosting facility. Staff learned about Lobby Stops at an ABOS (Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services) conference a couple years ago. On Tuesday, I began investigating the possibilities of this new service with my spiffy outreach wagon, a few bins of large print books, and a staff laptop. The initial response was overwhelmingly positive.

The three pilot sites for this new service are Walden Place, Bickford Senior Living, and Legacy Assisted Living. Overall, I made 14 new library card accounts on Tuesday and checked out about 10 items. I also updated several accounts, helped with Digital Johnson County related questions, placed holds, and had fun chatting with new patrons. Materials I bring to the Lobby Stops will adapt as I get to know the patrons at the sites better. Two recommendations I will apply immediately, based on patron suggestions, are the inclusion of books-on-disc and photography/art books. The plan is to continue visiting each Lobby Stop site twice monthly and re-evaluate in the Spring. Beginning in January, we will likely add Emerson Point to the list of sites we visit. The Bookmobile will no longer visit this site, but many people there come to our Tales and Travels program, so we're hoping a Lobby Stop would be the type of service they need.