“The happy person is the person who does something.” —Mary Lemist Titcomb
In the late 19th Century the American School Library was a traveling frontier library published by Harper & Brothers. The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History has the only complete original set of that series complete with its wooden carrying case.
One of the earliest mobile libraries in the 20th Century was a mule-drawn wagon carrying wooden boxes of books. It had been created in 1904 by the People’s Free Library of Chester County, South Carolina and served the rural areas.
Considered to be the first bookmobile in the United States was developed by Mary Lemist Titcomb (1857-1932). As a librarian in Washington County, Maryland, Titcomb wanted the library to reach all the people it could. The annual report for 1902 listed 23 branches each being a collection of 50 books in a case that was placed in a store or post office throughout that county.
The Washington County Free Library began a book wagon in 1905 and took the library materials directly to people’s homes in remote parts of the county. Today, it is estimated there are 119,000 public and private libraries in the USA. Some school libraries have 10,000 books and others have more or less.
Mary Lemist Titcomb was born in Farmington, New Hampshire and in 1873 was graduated from Robinson Female Seminary in Exeter, N. H.. She began working as an unpaid apprentice librarian in the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts. Then she was hired as a cataloger at the Rutland Public Library in Vermont where she worked for 12 years and became chief librarian. She was elected as secretary of the first Vermont Library Commission.
In 1904 Titcomb developed a book wagon or bookmobile. She later wrote “Would not a Library Wagon be the outward and visible sign of the service for which the Library stood, and do much more in cementing friendship?”
Established in 1881 by city ordinance the Aurora Public Library was located in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall until 1904 when a $50,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie built the new Library at 1 E. Benton Street.
In a 1953 experiment, a Bookmobile was leased from the Illinois State Library to extend services to schoolchildren. The Library purchased that Bookmobile which has served the community ever since. The current Bookmobile has been in service since 2003. Fundraising has begun to purchase a new Bookmobile.
The Eola Branch Library was opened in 1993 and was expanded in 2003. The West Branch, on the campus of Washington Middle School, opened in 1998.
In 2013 a $10.8 million state grant was received for a new Aurora library building. It opened in 2015 and was named the Richard and Gina Santori Public Library because of a $3 million donation by Gina Santori.
The Internet Archive has its own bookmobile to print out-of-copyright books on demand. Akinmowo was founded by Ola Ronke in 2015 and features books written by black women. The Free Black Women’s Library is a mobile library in Brooklyn. Titles are available in exchange for other titles written by black female authors. In the USA, the American Library Association sponsors National Bookmobile Day in April each year on the Wednesday of National Library Week.