Bookmobile Pic Small

In 1947, P.T.A. groups, grange, and school administrators urged the Medina County Budget Commission to purchase a bookmobile to serve the county’s rural districts. Its main purpose would be to provide library service to the smaller communities that could not support a library and to supplement school libraries. The groups who promoted the service suggested that the Medina library operate the mobile library service. Needed funds for the purchase and operation of the bookmobile would come from the intangible tax fund controlled by the budget commission.

In December, 1947 the County Budget Commission approved $9,300 for the purchase and operation of a bookmobile. The library board purchased a Dodge truck chassis which was sent to Gerstenschlager in Wooster to have a body constructed. The shelves were equipped with lights so that it could be used in the evening. Book capacity was 2500. It was staffed with one librarian and a driver/clerk.

The bookmobile made its debut at the 1948 Medina County Fair and on October 4, 1948 began service to outlying schools and communities. Children paid no fines but high school students and adults paid $.05 for each two weeks an item was overdue. All patrons were allowed to take one book at a time; teachers were limited to ten books for their classrooms. After its first full year of operation the staff on the bookmobile had registered over 4,000 borrowers and circulation for 1949 was 45,364.

In 1958, a second bookmobile was acquired. One of the bookmobiles was stocked with adult reading material for community stops and the other carried both juvenile and adult materials for schools and the teachers. By 1962, the original bookmobile was retired and replaced by one with an automatic shift, quite a luxury. Both bookmobiles provided library services to county residents until 1966 when the older van had to be retired. The last survivor traveled the county roads until 1982 when it became too expensive to make the needed repairs and over the years the county’s school libraries had improved making the school stops less necessary.

The citizens of Medina County passed a .75 mil operating levy in 1987 which allowed for the purchase of a new bookmobile. On June 3, 1991, the shiny new 28-foot Bluebird bus took to the roads. After fourteen years of service to community residents this Bookmobile was retired in September of 2005.

In September of 2005 a new Bookmobile, which had been two years in the making, hit the road following a brief ceremony by her staff. The custom built Bookmobile designed by OBS Specialty Vehicles, Inc. of Canton, Ohio functions as a full service library on wheels for the users of Medina County. It has room for 4,000-5,000 items including books for all ages, fiction, non-fiction, large print materials, magazines, comic books, picture books, first readers, paperbacks, audio books, CDs, videos and DVDs. New computers allow staff to search online resources and provide printed results for patrons and features two check out stations for faster service.