Many towns in Siouxland have their own public libraries as a way for residents to borrow books, digital media and more.
There is a traditional system in parts of Woodbury County, Iowa, as the cities of Sioux City and Sergeant Bluff have their own libraries, but there is also a county library system.
In an initiative that is marking a 75th anniversary, there were some festivities this summer to inform Woodbury County people about that county system. It was begun in 1950 as a way to reach people in lesser populated rural areas.
The Woodbury County Library has a main location in Moville, plus three branches, with Pierson to the west, Hornick to the east and Danbury as the southmost one.
The county mission staement reads as follows: “The purpose of the Woodbury County Library is to organize and make equitable distribution of informational material of various media to people of all ages in Woodbury County, and to offer service through the Woodbury County Bookmobile to all students who attend the school district sites that are serviced within the county and not to discriminate according to the residence of the students.”
The Woodbury County Bookmobile is a longstanding presence in the county, where a sizable van-style vehicle is driven by staff to schools, where young people can walk in and browse possible books to check out. There have been five bookmobiles over the 74 years in Woodbury County, including the first one that Louis Peterson drove back in 1951 from Wooster, Ohio, to Moville.
It is reported that as of 2018, there were 668 bookmobiles in the United States, and Kentucky, California, and Ohio have been leading the way for many years.
According to the American Library Association, the first count of Bookmobiles came in 1950, with 603.
The numbers climbed for the next four decades to a high of 1,100 in 1990. Then a decline in national Bookmobiles began, as the number dipped below 1,000 in 1994, below 900 in the year 2000, and below 800 in 2008.
The Woodbury County Bookmobile and librarians went to such schools as Woodbury Central and Lawton-Bronson in September.
I met up with the people who came to the elementary school in Bronson on September 12, as the instructional day was getting underway in the morning. I spoke there with county library director Donna Chapman and librarian Leah Downs, plus four L-B pupils and L-B Librarian Angie Williams.
Williams said the bookmobile is a rare resource that is another piece in the ways to foster reading in young people. The four students said they look forward to seeing the bookmobile.
And to personalize this a bit, I attended Kingsley-Pierson Schools, and well remember where the Woodbury County Library bookmobile parked on the south side of the Pierson school and how much I enjoyed using it.
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 80.
