Bookmobile - American Education

A 20th-century mobile library on a truck or van that served as a branch of a public library in areas too distant for residents to avail themselves of regular library services. The earliest bookmobile may have been Mr. Joshua Thomas’s horsedrawn book wagon, which started carrying books to outlying areas of Washington County, Maryland, in 1905. Jeepmobiles carried books to servicemen at camps across the United States during both World Wars. The increase in car ownership after World War II decreased the need for bookmobiles, and the development of the Internet rendered them all but obsolete by the end of the 20th century. There were two standard types of bookmobiles: One was a tractor-trailer unit with 5,000 to 7,000 volumes that could be detached and left parked in an area for a fixed time. These also served as temporary replacements for libraries undergoing renovation. The second, smaller type of bookmobile was in a van with 1,500 to 4,000 volumes that visited one or more different communities every day.