December 2007

Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1957, bookmobile service began as a two-year demonstration project funded by the Missouri State Library. Before 1957, city libraries in Columbia and Fulton had been established, but there were no county-wide library services in Boone or Callaway counties. The bookmobile project proved to be a success, and, in April of 1959, voters passed two proposals leading to the establishment of a tax-supported bookmobile service and a regional library system. The DBRL Outreach Department was then formed to manage the bookmobile services.

From 1959 through 1973, DBRL’s one, then two bookmobiles traveled throughout the region. In the 1970s, the Pied Piper media mobile was paired with a bookmobile to complement the book collection with story times and craft programs; however, soaring fuel prices forced a review of the miles traveled and use of the gas generator for utilities. In 1974, the bookmobile began using electrical hook-ups and changed from the frequent daily stops to one stop per day. Patrons found the one-a-day, regularly scheduled stops easier to remember and evening hours made the services accessible to working people.

In June 1981, the physical condition of one of the bookmobiles forced its retirement. In 1986, we retired the 17-year-old bookmobile that primarily held hardback books and replaced it with a smaller bookmobile holding mostly paperback books. The popularity of paperbacks was just gaining momentum and the reduced number of hardbacks was disappointing to some patrons at first, but came to be accepted. The retired bookmobile was used 1999-2000 as a temporary library in Ashland until rental space there was secured.

The current big purple bookmobile, purchased in 2001, can hold more than 4,000 items in a variety of formats. It features a wheelchair lift covered inside by swing-away book shelves, air-conditioning and seating. It serves the cities of Auxvasse, Columbia, Hallsville, Harrisburg, Holts Summit, Mokane, Sturgeon and Williamsburg. In 2003, the smaller, 1986 bookmobile was refurbished and its regular Columbia stops now include the Blind Boone Center, Bear Creek neighborhood and Columbia/Boone County Health Department; it also goes to special activities throughout town.

I want to thank and congratulate the Outreach Department for 50 years of bookmobile service. I also want to share a portion of a very nice letter we received in October from Sturgeon resident Virginia Haux. She wrote us to share her satisfaction with the current bookmobile service and included two newspaper articles she wrote in the 1970s. Here’s what she wrote in one of the articles, “People in the Sturgeon area have viewed the bookmobile as an old and good friend almost from the moment when it became a new friend some years ago.”