Commentary: FdL library's Bookmobile retired, (Fond du Lac Reporter, 8/29/2011)
Excerpt: But the bus was showing its age. With no indoor plumbing and rust holes, visitors froze in winter and baked in summer. Even a lively paint job in 2010 by the kids from the Boys and Girls Club couldn't mask a struggling enterprise. As well, a failing economy was making it tough to continue the program.
Use of the facility wasn't high enough to sustain library funding; city taxpayers were paying too much for a non-city service. Rosendale village leaders couldn't guarantee funding to move the satellite indoors. So we made the tough decision to close the old bookmobile forever; its last day was Aug. 19.
At the other end of town, the parked bookmobile in front of Festival Foods serves folks in the growing northeast Fond du Lac and the Holyland. But it too will be going away; it will be replaced by the FDPL Express, the library's first branch, located in the same shopping center.
Express will be kind of like the bookmobile, only much bigger with more selection, comfy chairs, reliable heating and cooling, and indoor plumbing. It will have the books, videos and recordings most in demand. Material reserved from the big library downtown can be picked up at Express. High traffic from the shopping center makes us believe we'll have the level of use to justify this expansion.
Selling off the bookmobiles is not just about the end of an era; it's the beginning of a new phase.
Related post:
Bookmobile assigned a permanent home in Rosendale. (2/7/2010)
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