Children sit engrossed as a member of libraries' staff reads a story outside the mobile library on a housing estate in Glasgow, c 1979.
As early as 1937, a sub-committee of Glasgow Corporation’s Libraries Committee recommended that a mobile library service should be established to serve housing estates in the city that had no branch library. Plans were made in 1938 to convert a Corporation bus for the purpose, but the coming of war caused a postponement. The proposal was dropped after the war in favour of small fixed service points in shops and schools.
It was only following the local government reorganisation of 1975 that Glasgow acquired a mobile library, a legacy from the former County of Lanark. Based at Shettleston Library, the mobile library served areas of eastern Glasgow, including parts of the County of Lanark which had been taken over by the expansion of the city boundaries. In later years, two mobile libraries extended the service to other areas of the city lacking a branch library, and in 2002 they were joined by Real on the Road, a mobile learning bus providing access to information technology.
Reference: Bulletin photographs, Box 3, City Libraries
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
children, community libraries, housing estates, housing schemes, Libraries Committee, mobile learning buses, mobile libraries, Real on the Road, Shettleston Library
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