“I like romance, with a bit of mystery and a bit of ‘how’s your father?’.”
‘How’s your father?’ stories, westerns, puzzles and DVDs - every week, volunteers select works off the shelves they think home service clients will like.
It’s not an exact science, but they do their best.
And for 89-year-old Shirley, who also can’t get to the library, her bags of books, dropped off by delivery volunteer Wendy McTaggart, is a lifeline.
“I just look forward to the books coming. As soon as Wendy’s gone I’m into the bag, finding out what’s in there, what I can read, and they’re good company. [You] lose your aches and pains.”
Shirley mostly reads novels, but likes autobiographies, too.
“I like going to bed with a book. It’s company, it really is.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be on your own, and you think, ‘Do I have to go to bed? Oh, I’ve got a book. I’ve got a good book.’”
Wendy McTaggart has delivered books for the Palmerston North City Library home service for 10 years. Photo / Jimmy Ellingham
Shirley is one of eight people McTaggart, a volunteer driver for 10 years, delivers to.
“I just love doing this service,” McTaggart said.
“If I were ever without a library book it would be terrible. I just love visiting the people that I go to, the housebound people, and I think it’s a great service.”
George and Joan Catherall are a husband-and-wife team of delivery drivers for Palmerston North City Library. Photo / Jimmy Ellingham
Husband-and-wife team Joan and George Catherall are also volunteer drivers.
Joan’s mother used the service in the 1980s and 1990s, so she knows what it means to the people she delivers to.
“I actually only see one - I deliver to two others, one at a rest home [and] one who has dogs she shuts away, but I talk to them on the phone. They know I’m coming.”
Home service co-ordinator Nora Kilpin, a library employee who oversees the process, said its clients were issued about 1300 items a month.
“We’re so glad that they can read again, because they have missed their books so much. They’re re-reading their own books and things like that.”
Other libraries have similar services, but the Palmerston North one is staffed almost entirely by volunteers.
Kilpin said this came with challenges.
“It’s probably getting harder now to get volunteers because they have to have to own a car. They have to be quite fit, still, because the bags can be quite heavy. They also have to have time.
