From The LA Times www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0419-straight-bookmobile-20150419-story.html:
Bookmobiles have been a fixture of rural American life since the 19th century, when horse-drawn book wagons stenciled with gold lettering read Free Library. There were low-slung black panel trucks in the 1930s, side doors open to shelves, with children sitting on the wide fenders turning pages.
In the Riverside (CA) Public Library recently, I read the catalog from the Gerstenslager Co. in Wooster, Ohio, which built bookmobiles for the nation. Children and adults stood in line to ascend a few stairs and be inside a real library, albeit one with shelves set on a slight incline, so books wouldn’t fall out when the coach was moving.
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