The Quaker Mobile Library was a project conceived by Quaker Homeless Action, a charity which supported homeless, marginalised and excluded people and which is now part of the UK charity Quaker Social Action.
Quaker Homeless Action established its mobile library – a customised van – in London in 1999. The mobile library operated on a weekly basis, supported by a group of committed volunteers, and lent thousands of books to men and women experiencing homelessness in London. The library aimed to help address social exclusion by providing a solution to the issue of people with “no fixed abode” being unable to borrow books from public libraries. As part of its ethos, the mobile library loaned books to readers who could not return them.
We collaborated with the Quaker Mobile Library on our SS19 collection ‘No Address Needed to Join’. Its name was a nod to the solution offered by the library, for people experiencing homelessness. Bethany volunteered with the Quaker Mobile Library after being introduced to them through a friend. The publisher Hachette kindly donated books to the Quaker Mobile Library as part of this collaboration. As with each of our charity partnerships, Quaker Homeless Action received 20% of the profits from the sale of the collection.
Quaker Homeless Action became part of Quaker Social Action in December 2020, when the mobile library was closed due to the pandemic. Quaker Social Action will soon be recommencing the mobile library service in London using the name Turn a Corner. If you would like to support the work, you can make a donation to Quaker Social Action.