Still Going Strong

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.

You Go Girl

Mary Titcomb was a rebel rouser.  An innovator that couldn’t leave well enough alone.  She was frustrated by the fact that so many people were going without library books in rural Washington County, Maryland.  The current system shipped boxes of 30 books to 66 local post offices and generals stores, but Mary just wasn’t satisfied.  She came up with a brilliant idea and presented it to the Board of Trustees in 1905.  A bookmobile.  

Actually, it was a library wagon, pulled by two elderly horses, Dandy and Black Beauty, and commandeered by Mr. Thomas, the janitor, and it traveled to homes and communities handing out books like candy.  Can you imagine how exciting it must have been to see the library wagon pulling into town in 1905?  Mrs. Titcomb oversaw the design of the wagon and directed the painter to refrain from “gilt and scrollwork” and make the letters “plain and dignified”, it was a library after all.  It was so reserved that one resident saw it coming and said, “We ain’t got no use for the dead wagon here.”  Mary decided to loosen up a bit and paint the trim red.

In 1910 the beautiful wagon met a violent end when it was demolished by a freight train, all that remained was splinters.  From the ashes a new motorized bookmobile arose in 1912 and continued its work in Washington County.  There are some marvelous pictures and more history of the early bookmobile days at the Western Maryland Regional Library website.

Margaret Binkley Du Vernet remembered going out to homes in the ‘Dodge truck version’ of the Book Wagon, still under the direction of Mrs. Titcomb, and following a route that would take them to each place twice a year.  Twice a year!  Imagine waiting six months for your next book?  I have trouble waiting six hours for a book I want.  Immediately I wondered how many books they could take out at a time.  They were probably so thrilled just to have a book that they were very grateful (not greedy like me!)  Margaret remembered a stop at one derelict home with rags stuck into the broken windows,

“Miss Chrissinger drove up and she tooted the horn. And eventually this woman came down with her brood of children and a wheelbarrow full of books, and she was very eagerly getting new ones, and I realized as I checked in her old ones they were all books of travel, and I often wondered whether Miss Chrissinger had guided her into that as an escape from the miserable existence she seemed to have.”

I was relieved and excited to learn that Washington County still has a bookmobile, the horses are gone but the 32 ft. bus now holds 4,000 books, has four Internet stations, air conditioning, a wheelchair lift and an lighted awning.  Mary would be proud.