In the traditional sense, libraries are physical buildings that contain collections of books and never move from the original site of their construction. However, there are also libraries that rest on the back of a donkey or on four wheels or even over an endless ocean. They’re constantly moving from town to town and school to school, over rugged mountains, through desert landscapes, and down unpaved dirt roads. Like the traditional libraries, these mobile libraries bring limitless wonder, imagination, and knowledge to all of their readers. Often, they travel to remote regions without access to books in order to spread the love of reading and learning.
One of the first examples of a mobile library is the horse-drawn “perambulating library” reported in England in 1857. Its creator, George Moore, was an English lace merchant and philanthropist. He intended to impart literature to the rural circle of eight villages the perambulating library operated in. Subsequently, more mobile libraries like Moore’s began to appear in England as well as in America. They include the Warrington Perambulating Library and the bookmobiles of the United States Womens Club. The age of horses was replaced with automobiles, hence the name “bookmobile.”
The Warrington Perambulating Library (1858)
Most notably, during the Great Depression, FDR’s Works Progress Administration established the Pack Horse Library Project to deliver books to the isolated people in the Appalachian Mountains. Many of the people did not have libraries themselves, and 31% of the population was illiterate. The Pack Horse Librarians would ride out to homes and schools at least twice a month on horses and mules. They were weighed down by packs of heavy books and braved treacherous terrain and harsh weather. The majority of the librarians were women, earning a reputation as courageous “book women” and “book ladies.”
A Pack Horse Librarian on her route
A Pack Horse Librarian dropping off her delivery
To this day, mobile libraries continue to thrive and benefit communities all across the world. In Argentina, artist Raul Lemesoff converted a 1979 Ford Falcon into a tank armored with 900 books. He appropriately named it the Arma de Instruccion Masiva (Weapon of Mass Instruction). In both urban and rural communities of the country, Lemesoff could be seen driving around and freely giving away his tank’s “armor” to anyone willing to read them. He’s described his unique bookmobile as a “structure that has the ability of transporting books, giving books away, collecting books, making a mess of people’s heads.”
Lemesoff with his Weapon of Mass Instruction
Farther up north in Colombia is the Biblioburro, which schoolteacher Luis Soriano started in 1997. After the first couple years of teaching went by with little to no progress in his students, he realized the reason why: most of them didn’t have any books on their secluded farmsteads. He decided to bring the books to them on his donkey, covering miles of rough land every day in the early hours of morning. People thought Soriano was “nothing more than a half-insane teacher with some books and his donkey.” Little did they know the lasting impact Biblioburro would have, as it went from a rural traveling library of 70 titles to now over 7,000.
Soriano and his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto
Meanwhile, in East Africa, the Camel Library Service was founded by the Kenya National Library Service in 1996. It was located in the North Eastern Province, one of the least developed parts of the country where the illiteracy level was 85%. Despite beginning in Garissa with only three camels, it had nicely grown since then and even branched out into Wajir. Its target groups were pastoralists, schools, adult literacy programmes, and refugee camps. However, once the roads saw improvement, people were able to travel and no longer needed the successful yet currently discontinued Camel Library Service.
A librarian leading the Camel Library Service caravan
What are your thoughts on mobile libraries? Are there any ones that you’ve heard about and found interesting? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Works Cited
Griffis, Kelcee. “Weapon of Mass Instruction: Artist Unveils Tank-Shaped Bookmobile to Promote Reading.” My Modern Met, Mar. 6 2015, https://mymodernmet.com/raul-lemesoff-tank-bookmobile/
McGraw, Eliza. “Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression’s Bookmobiles.” Smithsonian Magazine, Jun. 21 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/horse-riding-librarians-were-great-depression-bookmobiles-180963786/
Salama, Jordan. “Luis Soriano Had a Dream, Two Donkeys, and a Lot of Books.” Atlas Obscura, Nov. 17 2021, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/biblioburro-colombia
Smith, Joseph. “Mobile Libraries: Culture on the Go.” The Unwritten Record, Apr. 14 2020, https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2020/04/14/mobile-libraries-culture-on-the-go/
Thompson, Olivia. “Libraries on Horseback & The New Deal: A Fascinating History.” The Humantities and Ethics Center at Drury University, Sep. 10 2018, https://humanities.drury.edu/librarians-horseback-new-deal-fascinating-history/
“Before the Automobile: The First Mobile Libraries.” Bookmobiles: A History, May 3 2013, https://bookmobiles.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/before-the-automobile-the-first-mobile-libraries/
“Mobile Library Services.” Kenya National Library Service, (n.d.), https://www.knls.ac.ke/mobile-library-services/
Photo Credits
https://plumfieldandpaideia.com/down-cut-shin-creek-the-pack-horse-librarians-of-kentucky/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/biblioburro-colombia
https://albatrossworldsales.com/title/caravan-of-the-books-kenyas-mobile-camel-library