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New Bookmobile rolled out at James V. Brown Library

If you love to read or if you want to foster a love of reading in children, then you will be excited about the two newest additions to the James V. Brown Library's stable of vehicles.

The new Book's Bus and Bookmobile were unveiled at the kickoff of the Summer Reading Program, "All Together Now," at the library this week.

Children were busy with the activities set up in connection with the kick-off, and adults were anxious to tour the new vehicles, checking out what's going to be available to borrow.

For Linda Stein, of Muncy, stepping inside the new Bookmobile, a smaller version of the ones in the past, was an opportunity to reminisce about visits to her school by the Bookmobile when she was a child.

Stein attended a small school at

Pennsdale which had no library.

"Every once in a while the Bookmobile would come. You don't know how excited the kids were.

We would go running out onto the playground where this thing would be parked. It was much bigger in my memory and just filled with books," Stein said.

"I came from a home where there weren't really any books and then I went to a school where there were really no books because it was just a rural school. So the Bookmobile, when it came, was like a whole world that was something very different," she said.

"It was just three classrooms with three different grades. It was a special day when the Bookmobile came," she added.

Daniel Walz Jr., adult outreach professional, who will be manning the new Bookmobile, had a similar experience growing up in a rural area.

"The first outside-of-school library I ever had was with the old bus Bookmobile coming out to Antes Fort," Walz said.

Although he has fond childhood memories of the older Bookmobiles, including the most recent, he praised the newest, smaller vehicle.

"I've been driving for about a year and a half now and the old vehicle worked, but this is so much better -- faster internet speed, better gas mileage," Walz said.

"It's going to allow us to get out to more of the community because I can fit in spaces that I couldn't fit before. It really does meet our mission of taking all the library services to where the people are," he said.

The Bookmobile has about 37 stops every two weeks, including nursing facilities, independent living facilities and all of the county's housing units.

"I go from Hughesville to Jersey Shore, from Elimsport to Warrensville and everywhere in between," Walz said.

Walz, who had worked in other library systems before joining the staff at the local library, admitted that he loves getting out and seeing people.

"There are times when I go, especially to senior facilities, I might be the only person they talk to in a two-week period. So I have friends out there now," he said.

The campaign for the new vehicles began in fall 2019.

"We called it our Bookmobility Campaign," said Dana Brigandi, the library's development, marketing and public relations director.

"We had three goals that we wanted to accomplish -- bringing the library services to adults, to more children and then to keep our existing Storymobile, which goes to early childhood education facilities. We also noticed that there was a greater need for senior care facilities. This was pre-COVID. But seniors were looking for more things to do and even though they resided in a community housing complex or a wonderful facility, they didn't always have the opportunity to come to the library. So we wanted to have a vehicle that could go right to them and offer some programming," she said.

Four years and many donations from the community later, the Bookmobile and the Book's Bus are ready to roll out into the community.

While the Bookmobile is geared for adult readers, the Book's Bus will be filled with materials targeted for the zero to 18 age group. Leslie Crooks, youth outreach professional, who has a degree in early childhood education will be doing programming, "wherever we can find an opportunity and a need."

"That's why we have an additional vehicle and an additional position, to reach as many people and to just offer our services," Crooks said.

"Even though Book's Bus is not the entire library, it is the entire library. Whatever people need from the entire county will be available via Book's Bus," she said.

Crooks and her Book's Bus will also be helping the Storymobile with programming at some of the area preschools.

"The Storymobile cannot get to everyone, everywhere -- it's a big county," Crooks explained. "So we're going to go to them."

"Parents are busy. They can't necessarily -- after work, after school activities, after sports -- then come to the library on top of everything else. So we will go to the kids. In the summer, we will go to Firetree Place -- wherever the kids are. If they're at a camp, we'll go to the camp. Again, anywhere the kids are, that's where we're going," she said.

The Bookmobile will be headed out into the community next week, while the Book's Bus is being stocked with materials for its first trip out later this summer.