Libraries on wheels have a storied past

It must have struck some curmudgeons as a sign of a lazy, indolent era: What, bring books to people? In cars? Why in my day, we walked to the library, and carried home the Encyclopedia Britannica, all the volumes, on our backs. Put books in cars and drive them around? Pshaw! Next thing you know, they'll be recording novels on records for people to listen while they stare at the wall.

Boomers may have memories of the Bookmobile chuffing in the parking lot of a shopping center, but the idea goes back a long ways. The first bookmobiles appeared in Hennepin County a hundred years ago, in 1922. Minneapolis' library rolled out its first bookmobile 17 years later, a 26-foot long bus with 2,500 volumes. World War II paused the program, since the fuel and rubber were needed for victory. People had to walk again.

After the war, the service resumed. Other local library systems ran their own bookmobiles, serving the farms that still dotted the outer reaches of the suburbs. Minneapolis announced a new bookmobile in 1996, but the program would eventually wind down. But! The Hennepin County Library system still runs an outreach program that gets books to people who can't make it to the library — and unless they're delivered by bike or drone, the car that takes the books is still, technically a bookmobile.

The pleasures of browsing with the faint whiff of diesel in the air, though — that's no more.