“They sure love their books,” said Susan Smith, bookmobile librarian with Crittenden County Public Library (CCPL).
That kind of enthusiasm has helped keep the largest fleet of bookmobiles in the nation operating in rural Kentucky, delivering books to people who often can’t get to county-seat libraries.
Supporters say bookmobiles play an important role in promoting reading at all ages, but especially among children, helping them do better in school. But it’s not just the children served by the mobile libraries.
“I get to run the gamut from Headstart to 90-plus years old,” Smith said of her patrons, most of whom are homebound adults.
In the most recent national count in 2014, 75 Kentucky counties had traditional bookmobiles, said Michael Swendrowski, a board member with the Association of Bookmobiles & Outreach Services.
The next closest states were Ohio and California with just more than 50 each, he said. Several states reported having only a handful of bookmobiles — six in Texas, for instance, three in Kansas and two in Oklahoma.
Health problems keep people homebound. Many people don’t have a car to get to a public library that can be as far as 18 miles away from the far reaches of Crittenden County, and there is little public transportation in much of the state. Work schedules often don’t match library hours.
Smith said she has patrons with a variety of health issues, including a woman in her 90s who is legally blind. She relies on audio and large print books for enjoyment. Another, a man who suffered a debilitating stroke, looks forward to a new science-fiction title each visit from the bookmobile.
The bookmobile doesn’t run every day, but it makes its way around the county on a regular schedule, returning every two weeks. Smith visits the county’s preschool children and daycares, which are her busiest stops. Daycare kids account for as many as 50 checkouts per visit. And Smith invites home daycares and home-schools to join her route.
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Summer visits to homes help keep kids reading while school is out, countering the “summer slide” in reading skills.
If the weather is good enough for school to be in session, the bookmobile will go just about anywhere a delivery truck can make it up a drive. It does not stop at every house, but rather where people have requested service.
Smith would like to expand her rounds... For more of this article, which first appeared in the Jan. 25, 2018 printed edition of The Crittenden Press, is available in its entirety from archived issues of that paper. You can get one at The Crittenden Press newspaper office in Marion.
