The first bookmobile seems to have appeared in Warrington, England, in 1859. That horse-drawn cart, a "perambulating library," lent some 12,000 books during its first year of operation—a century before the sleek vehicle that would visit Arlington, Massachusetts, during my own elementary school years.
These memories recall the era when a printed book was a precious thing. Today, the access once provided by bookmobiles is being usurped by iPads, Kindles and the Internet. The speed and convenience of these devices, combined with the staggering wealth of online content, makes them deeply seductive. With the digital revolution changing our reading habits, will bookmobiles become obsolete? To learn more, read the full article by Jeff Greenwald in the Arts & Culture section of the Smithsonian Magazine website.
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