Health

Along with my pal Alex, I deliver books to library customers who can't make it to the library. Some are elderly and some are just too ill or disabled to make it round to the library. Contact with people from the library once a week is sometimes a life-saver for our clients.

Today we visited Hettie who - we think - is in her 80s. About two years ago, Hettie seemed to lose interest in reading, having had a library ticket for Elder Park since she was 6. She had deliveries for years but now she refused offers of any kind of books, wouldn't consider large print and rejected talking books out of hand.

Today, she announced she has had her cataracts done. She took the books we brought her and wants us to come back in a month.

Yay! Success! We are really pleased because recently we've gone from 12 clients to 5 - and the service is not sustainable like that.

We need to stop for a moment and think who made all this happen: the local authority, Glasgow City Council, set up an 'arms-length' agency called Glasgow Life. It recruited volunteers like Alex and me to provide a service in local libraries that otherwise would not exist. I wish the home delivery service could be part of regular library provision but it can't, so us volunteers step in and help out.

I have changed my attitude to libraries recently: I've been ill myself over the last 13 months with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I couldn't get out for a lot of the time and I appreciate the importance of having books delivered, but the local authority where I live doesn't run anything like the Glasgow service: here you can have the books they provide from the WRVS and that's it. Glasgow works out the kind of books you like and brings you only those books.

Right now, Alex and I, along with the library manager at Elder Park, are trying to flood the Govan, Ibrox, Mosspark, Cardonald area with adverts for our service. We want it to continue. We're trying to make contact with as many outside agencies as possible. If you know anyone who would benefit from the service, please contact us:

Elder Park Library
228a Langlands Road, Glasgow G51 3TZ
0141 276 1540
libraries@glasgowlife.org.uk