When Gerald Pryde visits his bookmobile stop in Browns Point, library workers have waiting for him a handful of the audio books he likes: mysteries, spy tales and war stories.
“It makes it handy,” said Pryde, 83, who turned to audio books and the bookmobile two years ago when his eyesight deteriorated. “This last week I got about 10 of them – a month’s supply to read.”
But the bookmobile service will soon end for him. In January, the Pierce County Library System will eliminate service at 11 of 15 locations, including the Saturday morning stops at Browns Point Town Center.
The cuts reflect hard budget realities for the tax-supported library system. It’s ending bookmobile service in areas of low usage to save $140,000 and offset a budget shortfall of $1.9 million for 2012.
The decision to slash bookmobile service is also driven by changes in the ways people obtain books and other information in the 21st century.
In 1947, the year the library system put its first bookmobile on the road, 37 percent of the books, records and magazines that people checked out were from the bookmobile. Now, less than 1 percent of all checkouts are from the two family bookmobiles, said Mary Getchell, communications director for the library system.
These days, a fast-growing option is for library users to download books online to electronic readers. And those who prefer a walk-in library have many branches from which to choose; the system will open its 18th building on Dec. 3 in Fife.
DECLINE IN SERVICE
The bookmobile reduction is the first service cut the Pierce County Library System has made in about 10 years.
The system’s budget shortfall is caused by a drop in property tax revenue, which provides nearly all the system’s funding. A larger gap of $2.9 million is projected for 2013.
The system will continue bookmobile service to four high-use stops at apartment complexes and a mobile home park. Families at these stops are isolated by lack of income, language barriers or lack of transportation, Getchell said.
Eleven other sites – including Browns Point, Fife Heights and those in outlying and rural areas such Elk Plain, Roy and Greenwater – will be eliminated in January.
Jo Brown of McKenna will lose her stop outside a convenience store in the Roy area.
“I don’t know what I’d do without the bookmobile,” said Brown, who reads five books a week. “I don’t have enough money to buy the number of books I read.”
The library system will continue using its three specially designed bookmobiles, which are similar to RVs. There’s not much of a market for 35-foot-long bookmobiles, Getchell said.
All three vehicles will be on the road on Saturdays, and keeping all three assures a backup, she said.
Getchell said the decision to cut back was based on usage and how best to deliver library services.
Less than 1 percent of the library system’s 251,000 card holders use the two family bookmobiles.
During the two-month period of April and May, 12,737 books and other items were checked out from the two family bookmobiles.
During that same time period, 1.4 million items were checked out from library buildings and online.
“The bookmobile is a personal, friendly service and many of us grew up with it,” Getchell said. “We are sad to see it reduced.”
FINDING SAVINGS
The library system has two family bookmobiles for adults and children, and a Kids Explorer bookmobile, each of which carries 3,000 items.
The family bookmobiles carry books, audio books, DVDs and children’s videos. The Kids Explorer version serves 20 other high-use stops at schools and other sites in low-income neighborhoods.
From January through Sept. 21 this year, 383 cardholders used the bookmobile stops that will be eliminated, Getchell said. However, that number represents far more people because more than one family member often uses the same library card.
Outside Pierce County, the use of bookmobiles varies. The library system serving Thurston and four other counties hasn’t had them for at least five years. Some other library systems – such as those serving King and Whatcom counties – still have bookmobiles.
Pierce County’s system is cutting back from its current annual budget of $28.5 million.
The $140,000 bookmobile savings will come from cutting costs for fuel, maintenance and book purchasing. The hours of one bookmobile operator also will be reduced and two other workers will be transferred to the new Fife Library at 6622 20th St. E.
Other cuts to help meet the shortfall include eliminating five unfilled positions and imposing a salary freeze for managers.
‘OBVIOUSLY, DISAPPOINTED’
Pryde, a retired commercial airlines and Air Force pilot, started using the bookmobile for audio books when he could no longer see fine print and read books because of macular degeneration.
His wife, Anne, drives him to the bookmobile, where she checks out DVDs and romance novels in book form.
Gerald Pryde listens to two or three library books a week, either on CDs or from a pocket-size, pre-loaded unit called a “Playaway”.
His reaction to the cutback: “Obviously, disappointed.”
“I recognize that it also is expensive and they have to live within their budget,” Pryde said.
He and his wife will check out items from the Tacoma Public Library’s Kobetich Branch about 11/2 miles from their Northeast Tacoma home and at the new Fife library.
But he’ll miss the custom service of having new books waiting for him.
“That’s what we’ll miss,” Pryde said. “They know us and we know them.”
Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647 steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/word
Staff photographer Dean J. Koepfler contributed to this report.
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