LISNews: Librarian News

Colorado Springs Gazette Has One on The Pikes Peak Library District bookmobile. Six days a week, weather permitting, the district’s two bookmobiles trek out to the small towns scattered across the vast expanses of the county north and east of Colorado Springs. In an area where a visit to a bricks-and-mortar library can be a daylong haul, the arrival of the library on wheels is a big deal — like Santa arriving by sleigh. Folks with totes and plastic grocery sacks crowd aboard the vehicle, eagerly choosing from the 4,500 books, magazines, CDs and videos.

Anonymous Patron writes "The OCRegister has some Sad News. Demand for the service falls as costs increase. Only two cities in Orange County still have them.The nation's bookmobiles are slowly going the way of the dinosaurs, killed off not by meteors, but by new technology and rising fuel prices. On Thursday, Santa Ana became the latest city to say goodbye to the bookmobile, citing high costs and relatively low patronage."

DAMASCUS - Ministry of Culture received Wednesday a Japanese culture gift consisting of five mobile public libraries as part of an agreement signed between the two governments in 2003 to narrow the gap between urban, rural and distant areas in some Syrian governorates, Syrian Arab News Agency reports.

The USD-265,000-gift included libraries equipped with bookshelves, service tables and 29-inch TV sets, video equipment to tour distant areas in Aleppo, Hama, al-Hasaka, Raqqa and Deir Ezzour.

Not Many Details Here, but The Sofia News Agency reports from Bulgaria where Classic and modern books will be delivered even to the remotest parts of Bulgaria through the mobile library to set off by June.

The idea, which will be implemented for the first time in the country after the example of other states, was presented by Deputy Culture Minister Nadezhda Zaharieva.

Every seventh Bulgarian or 13% of the country's population is illiterate, according to latest surveys. The worrisome percentages of illiteracy among Bulgarians is pertaining mainly to the ethnic minority groups, such as Roma population where 60% of the youth lacks basic education.