Kirkby Stephen Library will be a guinea pig for a fun new way of consulting with service users over the next four weeks. From Monday 31st October visitors to the library will be asked to vote on new opening hours in a less than conventional way.
The library wants to consult its users over options for changing opening hours but wants to avoid the usual dull and dry questionnaires.
The solution? Balls!
Or more specifically balls and tubes.
When a visitor checks out a book at the library they will be given a ball, they can then drop their ball into one of four tubes and cast their vote. Each tube is marked with measuring levels and a letter that represents one of the four different proposals for updating the library’s opening hours. This way everyone can see immediately which options are most popular.
County councillor Roger Bingham, spokesman for the library service says:
"This is a fun approach to an important issue. The county council is committed to ensuring that the services we provide meet the needs of local communities so we are obviously keen to consult them and engage with them before any changes are introduced. We’ve had a really good response to this approach. Its great that people can see what’s happening straight away rather than having to wait weeks for us to feedback statistics from a questionnaire!"