STORY BY CLAYTON TRUTOR
( Courtesy Vermont Historical Society)
A World of Books
The Bookmobile was a Major Source of Reading Material in Rural Vermont. It Remains a Vital Resource in a Handful of Communities
For Vermonters of a certain age, particularly those in the state’ s most rural regions, the Bookmobile was their window to the world. Between 1922 and 1974, vans with library stacks in the back brought reading materials to communities across the state. Patrons entered through the front door and selected books from the ceiling to floor shelves. They checked them out with the help of the driver / librarian at a desk in the back and exited through a rear door. Visits from the bookmobile punctuated the calendars at small town schools, where children waited anxiously for their arrival. Bookmobiles served adult patrons, as well, on regular stops across the state, providing service to citizens in towns without a library or with limited access to a library.
In addition, bookmobiles dropped off collections of as many as 1,000 books at a time at small town libraries. These deposits sometimes doubled the number of titles available in rural communities.
“ For something over half a century, the bookmobile has been a picturesque part of the country scene. It has parked in the shade of a big tree on a bright summer day while happy children and adults browse through its shelves and borrowed books to be read later on a vine-walled porch or in a shady sideyard hammock,” wrote Gerald Raftery of the Bennington Banner in March 1972. Less than two years after Raferty’ s column, the official Vermont Bookmobile program ended abruptly.
However, more than five decades later, a handful of communities in Vermont still offer the service thanks entirely to local efforts.
The Vermont Book Wagon
In 1922, Vermont became the first New England state to support a bookmobile. At the time, it was known as the“ Vermont Book Wagon”. The term“ Bookmobile” did not become commonplace in Vermont until the 1930s. The Vermont Federation of Women’ s Clubs provided financial support for the vehicle, a Dodge truck with special fittings in the back.
The Free Public Library Service( FPLS) of Vermont, a state agency created in
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