Mobile village library - via bicycle against COVID-19

Abstract

The basic idea of the Mobile libraries is to bring resources outside of the physical location of the library to the users who would not otherwise have the opportunity to benefit from them. In 2015, the village librarian Ruzica Popovic created a free mobile library wheeled by bicycle. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this library service went beyond the walls. Libraries had to transform and adapt their activities to new circumstances. In the beginning, she only delivered library material. After learning that some old and sick inhabitants of the village are not able to procure medicines, she began to procure and deliver medicines for them. Also, she started to supply the same population with food, vegetables and fruits. Enthusiasm and desire to help inhabitants always and at every opportunity, makes this librarian, from a small village in Serbia, the greatest example of what a library really is and what it can be in the future. Providing library services via bicycle is an outreach initiative that has appeared in cities around the world. Despite this effect in the urban environment, the mobile bicycle library is an unknown activity in the Serbian librarianship. Librarian Ruzica Popovic even before the pandemic implemented this mobile bicycle service in the village of Glavinci, Serbia, conducting a green humanitarian action of preserving the environment. After that, it became a tradition that the librarian at least once a week (or more often by invitation and need), serviced the villagers who could not come to the library and supplied them with books and newspapers.