North Yorkshire Council is planning to double the number of communities served by its mobile library service.
The library van currently makes 21 stops every month but council bosses hope to increase the number of towns and villages visited to at least 40.
The authority has received funding from the government’s libraries improvement fund to replace the existing mobile library with a smaller, more versatile vehicle.
Library staff hope this will allow the authority to increase the number of stops to provide books, digital resources and educational support in new, mainly rural communities.
Lee Taylor, library manager for service development at the council, said in a report to be presented to the council’s overview and scrutiny committee for housing and leisure, said:
“North Yorkshire Library Service is dedicated to enhancing access to library and wider council services through the mobile library project.
“The project will increase the number of communities visited and provide more opportunities for residents to benefit from services.”
The council’s existing stops were selected on a range of criteria, including suitable access for the vehicle, being not less than six miles from a static library and not less than six miles from another mobile library stop.
However, in order to find more suitable locations these criteria are set to be changed to a site with a population of no less than 300, not less than four miles from a static library and not less than one-and-a-half miles from another mobile library stop.
The report added that there were many communities in North Yorkshire that “may want and could benefit from a regular mobile library visit, and which may meet the essential qualifying criteria”.
However, it added:
“With only one vehicle to cover the whole county, our ability to meet likely demand is limited.
“We are proposing to weight our criteria to enable us to score and rank communities, with priority given to higher weighted criteria.”
Communities further away from a static library will get more points, along with communities with a high number of over-65s or under-fives.
Deprivation and health of the local population will also be taken into account.
When suitable communities have been identified, council staff plan to engage with parish councils ahead of adding the community to the list.
The report notes that there are considerable differences in take-up of the service in different communities with usage varying between an average of eight customers at the quietest stops to 48 at the busiest locations.
In future, the council could introduce a one-hour minimum stop time, with a maximum of two hours for current stops that have a high volume of visitors.
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