The antique bookmobile gets superstar treatment in Everett
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Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Brian Murphy of Baltimore photographs Pegasus, a Ford Model T that served as the first bookmobile in Washington state Thursday morning during the National Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services conference at the Holiday Inn in Everett.
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Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Brian Murphy of Baltimore photographs a “Flat Stanley” resting on Pegasus, a Ford Model T that served as the first bookmobile in Washington state. Murphy’s wife was attending the National Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services conference at the Holiday Inn in Everett. The Murphys brought the Flat Stanley with them to photograph in Washington state for a friend’s niece.
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Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Pegasus sits in the foyer at the Holiday Inn in Everett on Thursday.
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Mark Mulligan / The Herald
The radiator cap on Pegasus features a built-in thermometer to warn of overheating.
The 1920s-era Ford, owned by the Everett Public Library, sat out front at the Everett Holiday Inn where conference participants posed for photos with the old vehicle.
Everett's outreach librarian Theresa Gemmer hosted the National Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services conference, the first of the association's annual conventions in the state. Gemmer said she was proud to show off the modified Model T, which was the first of its kind in Washington and the second in the West.
“Modern bookmobiles have computer stations and cozy story time areas. These big buses are in sharp contrast to the old bookwagon,” Gemmer said. “That's what it was called in 1924 when innovative librarians first drove the muddy roads of Everett to take books to the outskirts of town.”
More than 150 librarians from across the country and Canada attended the conference held Wednesday through Friday, where they exchanged tips, found out how to better serve elderly readers and learned how to safely lift big boxes of books.
The association's president-elect, Kathryn Totten of Colorado, said not all bookmobile librarians have fancy equipment and many really do cart around books in cardboard boxes.
“We're like social workers, and we'll do anything to take the library out to people who can't come in,” Totten said. “We even go to out to record parents in prison reading children's books and then we deliver the tapes and the books to their kids.”
Children and older readers are the focus of many bookmobile journeys, Gemmer said.
“I was a bookmobile child,” Gemmer said. “I remember standing out at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Madison Street in south Everett waiting for the bookmobile. It's important to get kids to love books early on.”
Not long ago, Gemmer heard from a senior bookmobile client who called in to check the book delivery schedule.
“Is this your day to bring me books?” the man said. “Because I'm all out and if you don't come I'll have to start reading the phone book.”
Bookmobile librarians enjoy their jobs, Totten said.
“We love what we do so much, kids often think we live in the bookmobiles,” she said.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427, gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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• Books • Everett • Jobs • PeopleBehold Pegasus
Everett Public Library's oldest bookmobile has a Ford Model T body and a Model AA chassis. Nicknamed Pegasus (the flying horse from Greek mythology), the vehicle may have gotten its name from a popular book from the 1920s or from the horse that often helped pull the wagon when it was loaded with books.
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