Library Design Case Study: Leeds City Council Story Buses

It was an exciting prospect for us to be invited to work with Leeds City Council to design their new mobile children’s service vehicles. This was a first for Opening the Book and gave us an opportunity to explore how we could bring the same aesthetic of integrating books and play that we bring to our public library projects into a very challenging, much more compact environment.

The Story Buses were introduced to reach out to communities in Leeds where there is, traditionally, a low uptake of council services. The aims are:

Chief Librarian, Andrea Ellison said:

“Research has shown that the most effective way to increase the literacy of a community is to show parents and carers how to stimulate their children’s innate ability before the children are given formal reading instruction.

The Story Bus service aims to foster a lifelong love of reading through providing access to a broad range of books as well as staff expertise in an exciting, welcoming environment. An environment where reading and listening skills are shared, fostered and developed

If we want to give our children the best start in life and the best chance to lead happy, successful and fulfilled lives, if we want to keep our children out of a cycle of long term poverty and out of the criminal justice system –we need to make sure that they develop good literacy skills.

This is the outcome that we are working to achieve with our new Story Buses, Sam and Nelly as they travel across the city celebrating and sharing books and stories, generating fun and excitement wherever they visit.”

It was the inspiration of Chief Librarian, Andrea Ellison, to approach popular children’s book illustrator Nick Sharratt and his publishers (Penguin UK and MacMillan Children’s Books) for permission to use his work on the buses. It was a hard decision to narrow down the choices from all Nick’s fabulous work to Hippo Has A Hat and Chomp Stomp Big Roars Here Comes The Dinosaurs. Nick generously spent many hours adapting his original artwork where necessary to fit on the sides of the buses.

Local children contributed to the project by choosing names for the buses - Sam and Nelly. Torton Bodies were appointed to supply and fit the buses and we worked very closely with them to adapt many of our children’s units to fit this new setting.

It was important for us that children visiting the buses would have the same opportunity to see colourful book covers face out so that they could browse for themselves so our Picturebook and Boardbook units were made narrower with higher dividers to help prevent books falling out in transit. We also wanted children to have quiet reading spaces to climb into as well as places to snuggle with parents/carers, so we built in Reading Hideouts and comfortable bench sofas.

Plenty of noticeboard space was provided for displays. High level cupboards provide loads of storage space. A face-out display unit for books aimed at parents and carers was built at adult level.

We maintained the same strong design elements as in our other projects, such as colourful fabrics and bright colours – staying away from the traditional primary blues/greens/reds. Nick Sharratt’s artwork featured strongly on the interiors, being used to decorate the walls and Hideouts. It’s fun for children to look into the Hideouts and see two little cavemen, or a gorilla trying on slippers!

To support staff into working in this new-style mobile children’s space, our Training and Schools Co-ordinator, Fiona Edwards, led a session with staff on how to make the books look good.