The Library’s Bookmobile turns 5 this month. The brightly colored cargo van travels across Kansas City with a collection of books for on-the-spot browsing and checkout, as well as audiobooks, DVDs, Chromebooks, Wi-Fi hotspots, a printer, and more.  

“I describe it as a library on wheels,” says Mobile Services Director Sandra Davis. “So, I feel like we're just a mini library branch, you know, we do a small scale of what you can do at a branch.”  

On a recent Thursday, the Bookmobile staff opened the doors at 9:30 a.m. for their first of three scheduled stops: Nowlin Hall Apartments, for residents ages 50 and up.  

Cordelia Williams stood inside the Bookmobile greeting patrons, while Jeremy Weese staffed a table with items like stickers and bookmarks about Library resources.  

“I love working for libraries, so being able to go out in the community, meeting people where they’re at, it’s been great and very rewarding,” says Weese, a Mobile Services associate, who previously worked at the Plaza Branch.

Reader’s Services Librarian Lucy Donnelly chatted with visitors about what they liked to read and whether they wanted to take a book home for free. A woman in a sunflower print dress, clutching two DVDs, discussed her favorite genres: true crime and mysteries.  

“It’s just a great way to start a book conversation with people,” says Donnelly. 

“We have a massive backstock of advanced reader copies that publishers will send to us,” she says. “And so, I take a selection of them out with me to stops (three times a month) to give people a free book that they don’t have to worry about bringing back.” 

The Bookmobile got its start at a challenging time —  in August 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bookmobile hit the streets in September 2020, starting with visits to senior living centers and adding more outreach events and activities as things began to reopen.  

Davis says the Bookmobile has grown over the past five years and now visits 17 sites twice a month, from childcare facilities and community centers to neighborhoods. Plus, she says, more than 20 locations are on a waitlist.  

“I know when we started the Bookmobile program again, it had been 50 years since the last one,” she says.  

Marietta Wright, a 10-year resident at Nowlin Hall, stopped to chat about the books she checked out.  

“I feel good when they come around,” Wright says about the Bookmobile. “I try to get recipe books, and it really helps me eat the right foods and prepare the right meals for myself or for my kids, my family whenever they come over.” 

And the Bookmobile was off to its next stop of the day.