Helping seniors, one book at a time

Sometimes a person’s job is so quietly vital to a community, you might just miss it.

Such is the case with 16-year veteran librarian Mary Driscoll, who heads up the book delivery service for Dane County, Wisconsin. She makes sure that the shelves are well stocked for the area’s senior citizens.

Once a month, Driscoll and her colleagues at Dane County Library Services send out a book-filled van to nursing homes, senior living centers, and people who are homebound. The altruism exuded here personifies Driscoll’s kindness: helping those who don’t have the ability to enjoy life’s greatest gift—a book.

A large percentage of the customers are elderly or frail, and would not otherwise have access to the printed page.

Bolstering the mind is just as important as strengthening the body, no matter one’s age. But for the elderly, exercising the mind is vital; keeping them armed with books can have incredibly positive effects. According to certain studies, reading books may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, enable better sleep, and even minimize depression.

Driscoll’s kindness, and the books she delivers, are really lifelines to a universe that her customers may not easily access anymore, owing to immobility or infirmities.

“It really opens up the world for them,” she said. “This is a chance for them to have contact.”

Driscoll, who holds a Masters in library science, is the dispatcher, manning the phones. Through this role, she’s gotten to know her community, albeit from a different vantage point than how people normally get to know their neighbors. You can’t do this job if you can’t connect with others, have empathy, or aren’t kind.

“It’s super-fun,” she said, with a laugh. “There are people that I’ve talked to for years. I know everything about them – their neighbors, their children – even though I’ve never actually met them.”

She estimates that the program serves 65 unique institutions and “thousands” of people. Driscoll will also meet folks one-on-one to instruct them on downloading books from the library.

“Everybody wants to give grandma a Kindle for Christmas, but nobody wants to show her how to use it,” she noted. The majority of her customers still prefer the physical book.

But for Driscoll, who has been in the book sciences for more than a quarter century, and had previously been a children’s librarian and an outreach librarian, the point is simply to keep her customers satisfied.

JoAnn Schroeder, who calls herself “strictly a mystery gal,” lives in a senior complex in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Schroeder has known Driscoll since she moved in 15 years ago.

“She is a valuable friend to Dane County,” she said, who considers Driscoll deeply knowledgeable of titles and authors. “She remembers what you read, historical novels and novels. She’s interested in what you need—gardening, knitting, whatever you’re into.

“I like it because I never have to worry that I have no reading material,” she said.

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