80% of Utah’s population live in the vicinity of Salt Lake City. What remains is a vast expanse of rural counties across the 80,000 square miles. This could be a library nightmare...but never fear, the Utah Bookmobile to the rescue! Mary Titcomb’s crusade (see yesterday) inspired me to look for more bookmobiles and I definitely found them in Utah. Utah has nine separate county bookmobiles that travel 150,000 miles each year. They make 303 stops and serve 89 schools. Everything is bigger out west, including bookmobiles. These vehicles are HUGE trucks, tractor trailers filled with books! Each one has about 5,000 volumes and includes cds, dvds, Internet access, audio books and it’s easy to get more books through inter-library loan. The library cards are free, of course, and there are NO late fees (really!).
Each bookmobile is linked to a map and a detailed bookmobile schedule. The trucks stop in the towns as well as in schools, head start programs and senior centers. State, county and local taxes pay for the bookmobile service which is obviously much cheaper than constructing and maintaining a stand alone library. The mayor of Alpine, Utah loves the bookmobile and says it would be impossible to raise the money to build a library while keeping taxes low.
Of course, the bookmobile is a blessing to the 200,000 Utah readers who have free access to books, information and knowledge but it certainly doesn’t provide communities with places to gather or give kids a place to read and do their homework together. I thought about my two room rural library in Wilson, literally a storefront on the main street, tucked between a bar and the gas station. It isn’t much but it’s worth its weight in gold to me and many people in my community. I know it’s there when I need it for whatever reason. It’s a little disappointing to realize that children in rural Utah can only visit the bookmobile once every two weeks but they can stop by Walmart on their way home from school everyday.
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