Editing Bookmobile (section)

===20th century===
[[File:Blount-county-book-mobile-1943-tn1.jpg|thumb|A "book mobile" serving children in [[Blount County, Tennessee]], United States, in 1943]]
[[File:Photograph of the Athens Regional Library bookmobile, Athens, Georgia, 1948 September - DPLA - f14b48f318bf6b4dcc9bcd2df89372e0.jpg|thumb|Photograph of Mrs. Asbell, a housewife with an invalid husband, coming out to meet the Athens Regional Library bookmobile in Athens, Georgia, September 1948.]]
The Women's Club movement in 1904, had the standard to be held accountable for the influx of bookmobiles in thirty out of fifty states. Because of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs (TFWC), a new legislation to develop public libraries in Texas became possible after much advocating from TFWC for bookmobiles. This new legislation brought in library improvements and expansions that included establishing a system of traveling libraries in Texas. Women's Clubs wanted state governments to step in and create commissions for these traveling libraries. They hoped the commissions would boost the managers of the bookmobile's "Library Sprit". Unfortunately, the Texas Library Association (TLA) could not provide the type of service that is already provided to state libraries to bookmobiles.<ref name="Cummings, Jennifer 1966. pp. 299"/>

[[File:Rijdende bibliotheek doet zijn intrede Weeknummer 51-43 - Open Beelden - 63122.ogv|thumb|1951 video of a "bibliobus" serving small villages in the Netherlands]]
One of the earliest mobile libraries in the United States was a mule-drawn wagon carrying wooden boxes of books. It was created in 1904 by the People's Free Library of [[Chester County, South Carolina]], and served the rural areas there.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.libsci.sc.edu/histories/vts/vts09.html|website=Chester County Free Public Library|title=History|access-date=1 May 2010|archive-date=13 June 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613172509/http://www.libsci.sc.edu/histories/vts/vts09.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Another early mobile library service was developed by [[Mary Lemist Titcomb]] (1857–1932).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.whilbr.org/bookmobile/index.aspx|title=The first county bookmobile in the US, Western Maryland Regional Library|website=whilbr.org|access-date=14 July 2005|archive-date=29 November 2006|archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20061129031405/http://www.whilbr.org/bookmobile/index.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="pbs" /><ref name="WiegandDavis1994">{{cite book|editor=[[Wayne A. Wiegand]] and Donald G. Davis|title=Encyclopedia of Library History|year=1994|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8240-5787-9 |chapter=Itinerating Libraries |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WR9bsvhc4XMC&pg=PA315 |pages=315–317 |author=Joanne E. Passet}}</ref><ref name="wbur">{{cite web |url=https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/10/library-on-wheels-sharlee-glenn |title='Library on Wheels' Travels The Path Of America's First Bookmobile |date=April 10, 2018 |website=WBUR Here & Now |access-date=October 21, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180413145626/https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/10/library-on-wheels-sharlee-glenn |archive-date=April 13, 2018}}</ref> As a librarian in [[Washington County, Maryland]], Titcomb was concerned that the library was not reaching all the people it could.<ref name="pbs" /> Meant as a way to reach more library patrons, the annual report for 1902 listed 23 deposit stations, with each being a collection of 50 books in a case that was placed in a store or post office throughout the county.<ref>{{cite book|author=Washington County Free Library|title=First Annual Report for the Year ending October 1, 1902}}</ref> Although popular, Titcomb realized that even this did not reach the most rural residents, and so she cemented the idea of a "book wagon" in 1905, taking the library materials directly to people's homes in remote parts of the county.<ref name="riot" /><ref>{{cite news |author=Maryland State Archives|title= Maryland Women's Hall of Fame|work= Washington County Free Library}}</ref><ref name="promising" /><ref name="wbur" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/04/first-bookmobile-in-country.html |title=First bookmobile in the country |last=Tabler |first=Dave |date=April 16, 2018 |website=Appalachian History |access-date=October 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180419182910/https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/04/first-bookmobile-in-country.html |archive-date=April 19, 2018}}</ref> After securing a Carnegie gift of $2,500, Titcomb purchased a black Concord wagon and employed the library janitor to drive it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levinson |first1=Nancy Smiler |title=Takin' it to the Streets: The History of the Book Wagon |journal=Library Journal |date=May 1, 1991 |volume=116 |issue=8 |page=43-45<!-- |access-date=23 March 2023-->}}</ref> The book wagon proved popular, with 1,008 volumes distributed within its first six months. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levinson |first1=Nancy Smiler |title=Takin' it to the Streets: The History of the Book Wagon |journal=Library Journal |date=May 1, 1991 |volume=116 |issue=8 |page=43-45<!-- |access-date=23 March 2023-->}}</ref>
 
With the rise of motorized transport in America, a pioneering librarian in 1920 named [[Sarah Byrd Askew]] began driving her specially outfitted [[Ford Model T|Model T]] to provide library books to rural areas in New Jersey.<ref name=past>{{cite book|title=Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women|year=1997|publisher=Syracuse University Press|pages=103–104|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h-6WCBQPZdoC|author=Susan B. Roumfort|editor=Joan N. Burstyn|chapter=Sarah Byrd Askew, 1877–1942|isbn=9780815604181}}</ref> The automobile remained rare, however, and in Minneapolis, the [[Hennepin County Public Library]] operated a horse-drawn book wagon starting in 1922.<ref name="MinnPost">{{cite news|last1=Ehling|first1=Matt|title=The Hennepin County Library system – connecting past with present|url=https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2011/06/hennepin-county-library-system-%E2%80%93-connecting-past-present|access-date=26 March 2018|work=MinnPost|issue=Politics and Policy|date=30 June 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180327212234/https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2011/06/hennepin-county-library-system-%E2%80%93-connecting-past-present|archive-date=27 March 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Following the [[Great Depression in the United States]], a [[Works Progress Administration|WPA]] effort from 1935 to 1943 called the [[Pack Horse Library Project]] covered the remote coves and mountainsides of Kentucky and nearby Appalachia, bringing books and similar supplies on foot and on hoof to those who could not make the trip to a library on their own. Sometimes these "packhorse librarians" relied on a centralized contact to help them distribute the materials.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kywcrh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/WPA-Project-pack-horse-librarians-in-kentucky-1936-43.pdf|title=Packhorse Librarians in Kentucky, 1936–1943|author=WPA|website=University of Kentucky|date=July 2012|access-date=2 April 2014|archive-date=21 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221062716/http://www.kywcrh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/WPA-Project-pack-horse-librarians-in-kentucky-1936-43.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

At [[Fairfax County, Virginia]], county-wide bookmobile service was begun in 1940, in a truck loaned by the [[Works Progress Administration]] (WPA). The WPA support of the bookmobile ended in 1942, but the service continued.<ref>Barbuschak, Christopher, Virginia Room Archivist/Librarian, City of Fairfax Regional Library, Statement by E-Mail, sent Thursday, 16 August 2018, 10:56:52&nbsp;pm:''[...]"in a history book entitled Fairfax County VA A History. On page 618, we found this sentence:  "Herndon's Fortnightly Club established a library in 1889, and for many years this facility and the county's bookmobiles were the only library services available in the northwestern part of the county."  Fairfax County did not have bookmobiles until 1940. " [...]''</ref>
 
The "Library in Action" was a late-1960s bookmobile program in the [[Bronx, NY]], run by interracial staff that brought books to teenagers of color in under-served neighborhoods.<ref>{{cite web|author=Attig, Derek|title=National Bookmobile Day: Aggregation Edition|website=HASTAC|url=http://www.hastac.org/blogs/derekattig/2012/04/12/national-bookmobile-day-aggregation-edition|date=12 April 2012|access-date=19 March 2015|archive-date=8 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150308213609/http://www.hastac.org/blogs/derekattig/2012/04/12/national-bookmobile-day-aggregation-edition|url-status=live}}</ref>

Bookmobiles reached the height of their popularity in the mid-twentieth century.<ref name="riot" /><ref name="wbur" /><ref>Berger, M. (1977). Reading, Roadsters, and Rural America. ''The Journal of Library History (1974–1987),'' ''12''(1), 42–49. {{JSTOR|25540714}}</ref>

In England, bookmobiles, or "traveling libraries" as they were called in that country, were typically used in rural and outlying areas. However, during World War II, one traveling library found popularity in the city of London. Because of air raids and blackouts, patrons did not visit the Metropolitan Borough of Saint Pancras's physical libraries as much as before the war. To meet the needs of its citizens, the borough borrowed a traveling library van from Hastings and in 1941 created a "war-time library on wheels." (The Saint Pancras borough was abolished in 1965 and became part of the London Borough of Camden.)  

The Saint Pancras traveling library consisted of a van mounted on a six-wheel chassis powered by a Ford engine. The traveling library could carry more than 2,000 books on open-access shelves that ran the length of the van. The books were arranged in Dewey order, and up to 20 patrons could fit into the van at one time to browse and check out materials. A staff enclosure was at the rear of the van, and the van was lighted with windows in the roof – each fitted with black-out curtains in case of a German bombing raid. The van could even be used at night, as it was fitted with electric roof lamps that could access electrical current from a nearby lamp-standard or civil defense post. The traveling library had a selection of fiction and non-fiction works; it even had a children's section with fairy tales and non-fiction books for kids.

The mayor of the borough christened the van with a speech, saying that "People without books are like houses without windows." Even after heavy night bombings by the Germans, readers visited the Saint Pancras Traveling Library in some of the worst bombed areas.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sinclair|first=Frederick|date=1941|title=War-time London's Library on Wheels|url=|journal=Wilson Library Bulletin|volume=16|pages=220–223}}</ref>