The library’s home services are intended for people who are not able to visit the library themselves for reasons such as age, illness, or disability. In 2004, the Oulu City Library had about 35 patrons to whom library material was delivered. For the most part, a small library bus visited the patrons about every four weeks and was responsible for the deliveries. Library staff chose material based on the patrons’ previous loans in an attempt to find something new and interesting for them. The home service demanded quite a bit of work and was rather time-consuming.

Strength through cooperation

At the beginning of 2007, there were
more than 130,000 people living in
Oulu, 7,072 of which were over 75
years of age. The proportion of elderly
people in the population is still increasing
drastically. As the population gets
older and as assisted living increases,
the need for home services grows. It
has been estimated that 1-2 ‰ of the
residents are in need of home services,
which is about 130-260 people in Oulu.

New ways of carrying out home services
were needed to help the library
answer to the demands of the growing
needs for service. The thought that the
development of technology could
create new types of opportunities for
organizing services arose. Opportunities
to develop Internet services for
those who are independently active
were possible, due to the fact that those
reaching retirement age are used to
using Internet services.

A joint project was initiated in 2005,
funded by the Finnish Funding Agency
for Technology and Innovation (TEKES).
The goal of the project was to
develop individual Internet services for
the elderly and disabled, which would
improve their chances to cope in their
own home for a longer period of time.

Home services in practice

During the project, the Oulu City Library
adopted the principle of dividing
the different areas of the city into districts,
which meant that each library
was responsible for carrying out the
home service to the residents living in
its particular district. At the moment, a
total of twenty clerks work for the
library’s home services department.

Previously, elderly people became home
services patrons through their own
or their relatives’ initiative. During the
project, the service was effectively advertised
to family members caring for
their elderly relatives and to the city’s
public elderly care sector. It has also
received much publicity in the media.
Through these channels, information
has spread widely. The registration
form on the Internet has also proved to
be handy.

When a person who fulfills the criteria
for receiving home services and has
been approved for receiving the services,
then (s)he is interviewed. During
the interview, a permission slip is filled
out, which gives the clerk the right to
handle library matters on behalf of the
elderly person. It also gives the clerk
permission to store the borrowing
information and personal borrowing
profile of that person in the library’s
system.

The system chooses material
according to the search profile

During the interview, the patron’s
reading preferences and previous
reading experiences, as well as how
often the patron would prefer visits
from the library and how much material
(s)he would like to have, are
discussed. A personal search profile is
then compiled for the patron based on
the interview.When the clerk searches
for material for the patron on the library’s
database, a list of books that correspond
to the patron’s profile, and
which (s)he has not yet borrowed, appears
on the screen. The searches can
be limited to just new library material
as well. A random search provides the
desired amount of material randomly
chosen according to the search profile.

To facilitate the home services work,
ready-made search templates have been
created for material that interests the
home services patron. The clerk can
also edit the search templates for his/
her own patrons to suit their needs
more appropriately.

Because elderly people are often interested
in older fiction, the description
of it has been highlighted. Key words
according to a literary genre or several
of them, a certain theme, and key
words describing a time and place have
been added to the collection database
used in Finland. Also, the library has
used its own key words, for example
‘large-print texts’, ‘Finnish fiction’, or
‘true stories’. The same principle has
been used to supplement the descriptions
of new material. This has benefited
all of those who use the library’s
network database.

Those involved in the project noticed
that there are limitations as to how independently
active the patrons can be,
and that the clerks are still needed for
example in creating a search profile
and in evaluating the material resulting
from a search. The practical work itself,
getting the material from the shelf,
packing it and taking it to the patron
needs someone to do it. The literary
discussions with the patrons when visiting
them are the most rewarding
part of the job.

Librarian Eeva-Liisa Rantala ja Elsa Kolehmainen.
Photo: Pirkko Paakki

Literary discussions using a videophone

As part of the project, the library participated
in a videophone pilot project in
the autumn of 2006 together with the
elderly care service sector of the city of
Oulu, the Oulu University of Applied
Sciences, and Videra, a technology
company for distance working. The patrons
were five elderly people, to whom
videophones were given, and who were
chosen by the elderly care sector. The
library contacted the patrons via videophone
twice a week with the intent to
discuss the literature they had read.
Summing up, the experiment proved to
be a bit troublesome as preparing for
the video-phoning took too much
time, and the technology created, for
the time being, many types of problems.
Also, the target group involved
in the experiment, which was chosen
according to social factors and not
according to an interest in literature,
proved to be the wrong one in part.

Discussion about literature
in reading circles

At the beginning of 2007, reading
circles were initiated in two homes for
the elderly. They met every four weeks.
The works to be discussed were chosen
together, and they were delivered to the
participants beforehand. The participants
read everything from Finnish
novels to short stories and memoirs.
The books prompted much discussion
and reminiscing. The experience met
with favorable reception on the part of
both the participants and the leaders
for whom the experience created a
whole new perspective in library work.

“Sävelsirkku”

One of the partners in the project was
Audio Riders, a company that produces
rehabilitative voice services for the
elderly. The library compiled about 200
quiz questions associated with literature
into the company’s product, Sävelsirkku.
The questions dealt with not
only Finnish and foreign classics, but
also proverbs and the hometown of
Oulu.

Thoughts about the results of the project

The library received a new home services
system in which some of the work
of the clerks changed over to the library
system. Not only can the home services
patrons utilize the system, but
other patrons as well.
The descriptions of the material in the
library’s collection database improved:
New key words were added, and the
subject areas for fiction were defined
especially for talking books, large-print
books and new novels.

The home services were organized
according to district. The delivery of
material to patrons was made more
facile. Connections to the elderly care
sector in the city of Oulu were improved,
and new home services patrons
were actively acquired. The number of
the library’s home services patrons has
nearly doubled during the project, but
the goal is to further increase this
number.

One of the goals of the project was to
examine how electronic material acquired
for the library could be mediated
to patrons to be used at home, and
to test equipment with which patrons
could easily use the mediated material.
However, this part of the project was
not carried out because appropriate
material and equipment were not
available.

Those working with the library’s home
services must be trained properly in
using the system. The benefits arising
from the new system (more individualized,
reliable service for home services
patrons and the staff ’s more effective
use of working hours) will be evident
only after people know how to use it.

Irma Kyrki
Librarian

Translated by Turun Täyskäännös