1894 to support local libraries, operated the Bookmobile for most of its history. The FPLS operated the state’ s regional library system as well as interlibrary loan in Vermont. The state’ s regional libraries in Rutland, St. Albans, Brattleboro, Montpelier, and St. Johnsbury served as the starting point for bookmobile journeys.
By 1924, the Vermont Book Wagon supplied books directly to 146 Vermont communities. Fifty of those communities had no library service whatsoever before the Book Wagon.
The backstory to the Vermont bookmobile actually begins in 1901. At that time, Rutland city librarian Mary Titcomb started advocating for traveling libraries across the state. Unable to gain state support for the program, Titcomb
relocated to Maryland. In Hagerstown, Maryland, Titcomb inaugurated the country’ s first bookmobile program in 1905. Initially, she brought it around by horse-and-buggy but soon procured an automobile. Within a few years, the idea caught on in other states. Bookmobiles became particularly popular in the rural Midwest, where they served as connective tissue between the region’ s faraway outposts and the rest of the culture. Years later, Vermont caught on to the concept. It became an overnight fixture of life in the Green Mountain State. The Bookmobile’ s first great hurrah came in Summer 1922. Helen Richards of the State Library Commission drove the Book Wagon down to Rutland County in August 1922 for an extended visit. She made stops in every town in the county and introduced the program to residents at meetings at several Rutland County Grange Halls. Many of the people she encountered told her they had never met a librarian. For as long as the weather allowed, Richards brought the Book Wagon to dozens of additional towns in all corners of the state.
“ The Book Wagon’ s arrival is a great event in the lives of the people of these communities. The sound of its approach having brought the family from the fields, the barns, and the houses,” wrote an editorialist for the Bennington Banner in March 1923, not long after the service’ s inauguration.
Dime banks appeared in libraries across Vermont during the 1920s to help support the Book Wagon program.
“ Dottie” visiting Williston, VT in 2019.( Jen Daudlin, courtesy Clayton Trutor)
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