Jenny Du Puis
Andy Curtiss browses the adult fiction section of the new Dane County Library Bookmobile.
It’s a sunny Monday afternoon — blue skies with a smattering of puffy clouds. The freshly painted bright green Bookmobile is parked near the lush lawn of Shorewood Elementary, and a small machine is propped up outside its door, pumping out bubbles. A multicultural parade of parents and kids — on foot, scooters and bikes with trailers — makes its way toward the vehicle, which stops for a busy hour on its weekly route.
One kid is already reading under a shade tree as Mary Driscoll, Dane County’s outreach librarian, lays out a blanket. She hauls out bottles of sand and colorful glitter as toddlers and kids start making necklaces and keychains.
One of the crafters is Grace Qian, 10, who graduated from Shorewood in June and is heading to Hamilton Middle School in the fall. She’s a Bookmobile regular who reads eight or nine hours a week, mostly science-related titles. “I check out a lot of books,” says Grace. “They change the books every week, so it’s a great way to learn. And you can ask them and they show you around the library.”
Inside the Bookmobile, a new custom-made vehicle that went on the road this spring, kids are rooting through low bins holding picture books. Nate Snortum, today’s Bookmobile driver and librarian, hands a fidget spinner to a young patron who turned in her Summer Reading Program log. He greets Nancy Volk, who comes every week with her 95-year-old neighbor, Irmgard Carpenter. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood 70 years and the Bookmobile started at Eagle Heights, and I used to walk up there as a young woman, and ever since I’ve been coming down here,” says Carpenter. “It’s a blessing because I no longer drive at this age, and I couldn’t possibly get over to Sequoya, which is the closest [library].”
Jenny Du Puis
Snortum and the other mobile librarians get to “stage” the Bookmobile for the weekly visits, choosing many of the 4,000-plus items — books, magazine, audiobooks, DVDs — on the bus. It’s one of the reasons why Snortum, who worked for 12 years as a pharmaceutical researcher before graduating with a library sciences degree from UW-Milwaukee, loves his job. “You really get to know the patrons that come in, especially if you’re working the same stops week after week, “ says Snortum. “You’re getting to know communities and people.”
“We are regular visitors,” says Pallavi Chhabra, a doctoral candidate at UW-Madison’s education department and resident of nearby Eagle Heights. She visits the Bookmobile with her daughter Maheeka, 6, and her mother, who is visiting from India. She says when she first moved to the U.S., she used to walk to the Bookmobile every week with her Indian friends. “If you’re not driving, it’s the best way — to get a walk and get the books and have a really nice connection.”
Snortum loves all the stops, but he says Shorewood, because of its proximity to Eagle Heights, attracts the most multicultural crowd. And during the school year, the proximity to the school makes Mondays [when Madison schools have early release] a particularly popular day. “We pull up at 2 on Mondays, and there is a horde of kids waiting for us,” says Snortum.
Snortum enjoys recommending books and even anticipating patrons’ needs: “You kind of know who’s going to come out. So you’ll intentionally put books in places where you know that person’s going to find them. You see the look on their face and ‘yup, I just put that book out and I knew they were going to take it.’”
He feels lucky to have landed the position right out of library school: “It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”
Year the county’s first Bookmobile went on the road: 1966
Estimated number of stops in those 50 years of service: More than 40,000
Drivers/mobile librarians that have been employed: 25
Fidget spinners bought for Summer Reading Program incentives this year: 700
Bookmobile backpacks given out for the Summer Reading Program: 300
Number of children signed up for the Summer Reading Program: More than 600
Number of adults: 115
Items checked out to patrons since the Bookmobile has been on the road: More than 4 million