Bookmobiles

Interesting story on bookmobiles which provide print-on-demand titles for people who might not have ready access to a regular library.

How it works is that a book or manuscript is first scanned by a high-end Minolta BS 7000 scanner, (one hundred of them were recently donated by the Carnegie Mellon University, followed by a “cropper” treatment whereby all unwanted stains or needless images on the original text are deleted. Before being put on the web the manuscript passes through indigenously developed software called the Optical Corrector Recognizer, available currently in seven Indian languages.

The service is very popular and often 200 people will show up at any given stop. The organizers hope to have service available to all of India by 2008. More from Rediff.

David Rothman writes “Oh, the Thoreauvian irony. Massachusetts officials so far won’t let Eric Eldred give away free copies of public domain books on the shores of Henry David Thoreau’s famous pond. Might jeopardize on-site bookstore sales at Walden, some fear. This man Eldred is up to something dangerous–using an Internet Bookmobile to promote the idea of making one’s own books from net.downloads. Hello, Garry Trudeau? Have fun drawing this up. Oh, and while you’re at it, how about doing something about John Kerry’s wimpiness toward the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act–likewise of interest to Eric Eldred? (Boston Globe via Larry Lessig’s blog.)”

In an effort to reach out to middle and high school kids in Ames, tomorrow the library bookmobile will popover to the town’s skate park and try to enhance the kids to skid to a stop and read.

Librarian Kay Marner has worked with younger staff members to choose skater-friendly music such as Nirvana, Metallica, Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins. They’ve gathered DVDs of famed skater Tony Hawk and books on extreme sports. Marner said, “We’re shooting for what we think the kids would like.”

Anonymous Patron sends “this bookmobile story from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about how bookmobiles serve remote areas and homebound patrons in Pennsylvania.

Bob Cox sends another one from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the restoration of Washington states first bookmobile. The chassis of the 1924 Model AA Ford, named Pegasus, was lovingly restored and put back into service. Everett library’s outreach coordinator Theresa Gemmer commented that outreach staff are ‘…kind of like the Marines of librarians — whatever it takes, we get the books to the people,’ Some nice pictures of the project here. “

Anonymous Patron writes “I just love Bookmobile Stories. This one is from Millville, Utah, and covers Donald Penrod, who, Five years after retiring as Box Elder County’s bookmobile librarian is busier than ever. Now he is making the rounds through hundreds of Utah neighborhoods on mobile-library routes in Box Elder, Cache, Duchesne, Rich, Summit, Tooele and Utah counties. He is a substitute bookmobile driver. And the routes are less demanding than when he was the librarian.”

Two anonymous donors made it possible for the Great Falls (MT) Public Library Bookmobile to stay on the road after a county budget cut took it out of commission. It seems that “Anonymous” has done a great deal to keep this library afloat in the past decade, as the bookmobile itself was purchased with an anonymous donation in 1998. ‘…that donation carried a condition that government not cut back on its library funding because of the donation, and that the library establish an equipment fund to avoid the same problem in the future.’ More from the Great Falls Tribune.

Sad News For Napa Valley California where a request that the library revive the long-defunct Bookmobile seems about as remote as the areas the traveling library served.

The Bookmobile was discontinued in August 1998, when the expensive vehicle required more maintenance than the county’s public works equipment pool felt was fiscally reasonable.

Library Director Janet McCoy said this week that she had gone on a ride-along when the Bookmobile was still in service to areas such as Lake Berryessa, Pope Valley and Angwin. “It has to rank as one of the most terrifying days of my life,” she told supervisors on Tuesday.

M. McGrorty writes “News From Guam where
it’s going to take time, hard work and patience, but it can be repaired. Guam’s bookmobile may be back on the streets within a few months, going from village to village with a busload of library books to offer residents.”

Rich writes “Monday’s Boston Globe reports that bookmobiles in Massachusetts are facing extinction.
Boston.com news has the story.”

“. . . some residents and librarians argue that it’s important to preserve the bookmobile — particularly in communities where it provides the only access to books for the disabled, day-care centers, and shut-in elderly residents.
“

Gary D. Price, MLIS writes When Don Nunes was growing up, both his parents worked. They didn’t have time to drive him to the library, so he relied on bookmobiles to bring him reading materials. Read the
full story.“