ICML 9

9º Congreso Mundial de Información en Salud y Bibliotecas

Salvador, Bahia - Brasil, 20 a 23 de septiembre de 2005

BVS4

4a. Reunión de Coordinación Regional de la BVS

19 y 20 de septiembre de 2005

Unorp Living Library Project

Participantes:
Documentos:

The Living Library Unorp project can be defined as an itinerary library, responsible for spreading the habit and motivating the reading practice for diversified audiences, which do not have frequent access to libraries, besides inserting bibliotherapy as an adjunct therapeutic resource in recovering the physical and mental health of individuals. The superior teaching institution social responsibility is one of the concerning points of the library work in the last years – contributing with the social, cultural and digital inclusion of the society. The project is divided in three branches: a) library bus; b) library wheelbarrows; c) moving shelf boxes. The second, branch, which has to do with the health issues, is the theme for this study.

The library wheelbarrows consist of small libraries, which are conducted in the Health Centers (mainly hospitals) offering the users reading programs while they wait for the medical treatment. This initiative aims to contribute to the quality of the attendanc e in these Centers, lessening the anxiety of patients and companions during the waiting period as well as to contribute to the cure and recovering process of internalized patients. Filling the spare time with reading activities contributes significantly with the enhancing of the users psychological status.
 
The methodology consists of establishing a partnership with hospitals which are interested in this work besides defining, from a preliminary study, the attendance of the library wheelbarrows, once the physical infra-structure of these centers are generally very wide.

The project will be applied in settings where there is:
- high demand of patients companions (users) in long periods of waiting;
- users in broken psychological conditions, due to the tension state which evolves the health treatments; 
- private and public network users, which contributes to the study about variables of attended users;

The work of the professional that execute the whee lbarrow work consist of offering, in a first phases, the literature which forms the stock and of giving suggestions about reading tips, presenting the diversity of work available in the itinerary library. After the first year of the wheelbarrow service, the teaching institution and the hospital will perform an analysis of the results obtained and after that they may increase their range in the project, what foresees the implementing of the bibliotherapy services to the internalized patients and therefore to their respective companions. The team acting in loco occurs parallel to the study activities of the existent literature, the case analysis and the monthly meetings for discussion about the everyday situations faced in the project.
    
The project has as its objectives: a) stimulating and motivating the reading habit; b) contributing for cultural inclusion through the data access; c) including Bibliotherapy as a therapeutic resource. The evidences detected by the demand on the external u sers attendance justifies the need of implementing the social projects which make it easy the population access to the stock, main condition in forming a conscious and well informed society.

It is wise to highlight that the Living Library Unorp project has been added to the humanization project belonging to a partner hospital, which action is directed to the public health network.