A Brief History of RHPL's Community Bookmobile
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
With the recent unveiling of our new Early Literacy Bus in June of 2025, we at the Rochester Hills Public Library want to share the history of the other bookmobile we use to provide service to the streets of the RHPL service area: Books on Board (or BoB for short).
BoB is the latest addition to a long-spanning history of bookmobiles, the earliest dating all the way back to the early 1900s in the community of Hagerstown, Maryland. This first bookmobile was a simple horse-drawn buggy with shelves created by Mary Titcomb as an extension to the Washington County Free Library. This innovation, allowing easy access to materials for local communities, quickly spread across the country and inspired other libraries to follow in Mary’s footsteps.
Today, there are over 900 bookmobiles throughout America, including several in the libraries of Ypsilanti, Kent District, and more. The Rochester Hills Public Library, wanting to create an extension of its services, took after its fellow Michigan libraries and began production of its own bookmobile. After planning and purchasing the vehicle with the help of the Friends of Rochester Hills Public Library, the bookmobile hit the streets in February 2005 to bring the library to the people!
For the past twenty years, the bookmobile has provided books of all genres to foster literacy in the RHPL service area. It offers community storytime during the summer seasons, a reservation system to deliver materials to visiting patrons, and provides materials to residency centers so avid readers of all ages may continue to get lost in their favorite books.
The bookmobile has gone through changes since its introduction to the RHPL. In early 2018, after repeated malfunctions and a lack of replacement parts, the original bus was decommissioned. In 2018, a used bookmobile was purchased to keep the bookmobile in regular service. But in late 2022 bad luck struck again and forced the bus off the road.
As of March 2023, the bookmobile now takes the form of a utility van we affectionately call BoB and continues its services across 26 stops. Though smaller, the Rochester Hills Public Library plans to upgrade BoB into a full bus within the next few years to match the Early Literacy Bus’ recent makeover. But no matter the size, BoB continues to provide patrons with all the stories they’d need all year round.
If you would like to visit BoB yourself, make sure you take a look at our schedule and find a stop near you. What sort of books would you like to see aboard BoB the next time he rolls around?
This post was written by Charlie Garza, Bookmobile Driver at RHPL
