Book bus brings summer reading to children
An innovative project to encourage children to read books during their summer school holidays has been launched with the Summer Book Bus.
The bus made its first call to the village of Clogheen last week, and is already proving popular with younger readers.
The initiative is a project of the County Council Joint Libraries Committee. This brilliant idea, according to committee chairperson, Cllr Marie Murphy, was proposed by Emer O’Brien, a native of Ballyporeen, as a pilot project using the Schools Mobile Van which is not in use during the summer months.
The driver visits schools three days per week during term time and the proposal here was to use these days in the summer time to duplicate the Schools Library Van as aChildren’s Summer Book Bus.
In her proposal, Emer suggested that "the Summer Reading Tree is a very successful reading programme that encourages children to read during the summer months, thus making their transition back to school in September easier. However, despite the success of this programme, its success is mainly limited to children living in close proximity to a library building. The Children’s Summer Book Bus could run the summer reading tree as well as providing access to quality and variety reading material for more children who would not normally have access to this service."
Cllr Murphy explained to The Nationalist that the Children’s Summer Book Bus was promoted in local schools before the end of the school term. Children were given achance to sign up and they got their borrower card and summer reading tree details.
Day one of this new initiative was on Tuesday, June 29, when the Summer Book Bus made its first stop in Clogheen. Cllr Murphy said that Clogheen was chosen as a ‘bus stop’ by virtue of the fact that there was a public library operating from the courthouse until about 20 years ago.
Marie added that almost 50 children from the Clogheen, Burncourt and Ballyporeen areas, preschoolers to teenagers paid a visit to the Book Bus that first morning and many of the parents that she spoke to thought it was a brilliant idea, which should be expanded if at all possible.
Furthermore the interaction between Ann-Marie Mullins, from Clonmel Library and the children was excellent, some of the smaller children were enthralled by the story Ann Marie read to them, said Cllr Murphy.
The Children’s Summer Book Bus will be in St. Paul’s Community Centre Car park every Tuesday between 10.30am and 12.30am from June 29 to August 17. Membership is free for children and books on the bus are suitable for children up to 14 years of age.
The County Tipperary Joint Libraries Committee is the authority responsible for providing and promoting an active public library service for the people of County Tipperary. The current committee is made up of 21 members appointed by both South and North Tipperary County Councils. Cllr Murphy, who is from Clogheen, was recently elected committee chairperson.
The mission statement of the Joint Libraries Committee is: ‘To ensure that everyone has equal opportunity access to a high quality library and information service which is responsive to the changing needs of our communities and is fully supportive of the process of life-long learning’.
From modest beginnings, the Joint Libraries Committee has gradually developed and expanded the library service in Tipperary and now operates a network of thirteen branches throughout the county. In addition, the committee operates a schools library system that now extends to over 150 schools.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Hollywood’s Mel Gibson scouts film sets in Cahir
- Cutest Moments Competition!
- Master craftsman and photograher launches iconic collection of old Clonmel images
- Declan Ryan says that Tipp hurlers are a team for the big occasion
- New radio documentary on first garda shot dead ninety years ago in Mullinahone
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Weather for Clonmel
Monday 21 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South
