Next year, Johnson County Public Library residents may have not only a new library branch to look forward to, but a new way to access materials as well.
Library officials hope to have a bookmobile purchased by the end of this year. The vehicle would be able to transport cartloads of books and deliver library materials to underserved communities, such as Bargersville, which does not have a library branch, said Lisa Lintner, the library system’s executive director.
“The outreach vehicle would serve two purposes,” Lintner said. “People can come onto the bookmobile and shop for books, and the way they’re designed, you can put cartloads of books on them and can take them inside a senior center if there’s a person with mobility concerns (or) you can take them inside a room with storytime.”
People would also be able to check out books either inside or outside the vehicle, she said.
The bookmobile is of particular interest when it comes to serving Bargersville and its more than 8,000 residents. With no library branch in the town, library administrators approached Bargersville town council last year about funding for a library kiosk in the town, but town officials did not include the kiosk in the town’s budget. Library officials had asked the town to pay for $69,627 of the almost $200,000 kiosk.
The bookmobile would cost between $150,000 and $200,000 and be completely funded by the library, removing a potential roadblock, Lintner said.
If all goes according to plan, the bookmobile would have a regular route, so if someone checks out an item at a specific location along the route, they could return it at the same location when the bookmobile returns, which might, for example, happen once a month. If they miss that return date, they can call the library to renew the item, she said.
The bookmobile is the culmination of lengthy planning, said Sarah Taylor, the library’s assistant director.
“It’s an idea we’ve talked about for a long time,” Taylor said “There was a lot of outreach (last summer) and throughout the year. We thought about, if we had a vehicle like this, it would be so much easier to get out and about to different areas in the community. We started considering it more seriously this year, thinking about additional opportunities for Bargersville.”
The Johnson County Public Library started operating a bookmobile serving branchless areas of the county in 1966. The library ordered a new bookmobile in 1975, but discontinued its service in 1981 due to a fire and increased access to library branches in the county with new ones being built, Taylor said in an email.
Next steps for the library include looking at different pricing and designs, including analyzing which features the library is interested in including in a bookmobile. With the current timeline, library patrons can expect to see the bookmobile on Johnson County streets sometime next year, although an exact date has not been finalized yet, Lintner said.
