The Cybermobile: A Groovy Set of Wheels
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
Director of the Garfield Library in Brunswick, New York, and author of A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
kgs@bluehighways.com
Column for September 1998
Ball State University's Frank Groom, Muncie PL Director Virginia Nilles (in doorway),
ALA President Barbara Ford, and Muncie Assistant Director John Drumm pose at the
Cybermobile's Capitol Hill stop.
Those of us in areas so thinly populated that an excursion to the library involves more preparation than a mountain-climbing trip were thrilled by the debut at ALA Annual Conference of Muncie (Ind.) Public Library's Cybermobile, a bookmobile with six Internet workstations, funded in part by LSTA dollars (AL, Aug., p. 73).
This is by no means the first bookmobile with online services, but it's the first I know of with such a strong commitment to Internet public access. This follows a healthy trend in the libraries that aren't on wheels; last year 60% of all public libraries offered public access, and according to the National Survey on Public Libraries and the Internet, this year that will rise to 72%. (While rummaging through a book on library history, I found that the more things change, the more they stay the same: About 100 years ago, public libraries were discussing whether to open their stacks to patrons. Wonder what we'll discuss in the next millennium?)
Connectivity is easy: Bookmobiles just have to carry 75 miles of phone line with them, and connect to a router back to the office. No, seriously. . . . Like similar projects elsewhere, the Cybermobile also demonstrates creative use of wireless Internet technologies. The initial request for information goes out over a cellular modem. The files are returned via satellite through a technology called the Direct PC system. John Drumm, assistant director of Muncie Public Library and co-conspirator with Ball State University's Frank Groom on the Cybermobile project, dryly observed that this wireless technology "should work in theory—it works really well in practice."
Public-private partnerships on the Cybermobile project were something else that worked well in practice, with good communication with Ohio Bus Sales, excellent support from Network Solutions Inc., and permission from the PAWS Company (home of Garfield the Cat) to use their Garfield logo on the Cybermobile.
Prehistoric Cybermobiles
Mobile wireless communications aren't new to libraries. Duncan McCoy of Boulder City (Nev.) Library District reminisced, "Whitman County Library in Colfax, Washington, used packet radio years ago to transmit book requests and reference questions from their bookmobile to the main library."
Other creative librarians have put Internet access on bookmobiles for circulation access. As far back as June 1995, the Troy-Miami County (Ohio) Public Library bookmobile began using a cellular Net connection to access circulation info.
Just this May, San Francisco Public Library wired two bookmobiles to the Internet using Ricochet, a wireless access service offered by Metricom. There is one Internet workstation per bookmobile, which allows bookmobile staff to "provide so much more on-the-spot information to our patrons than in the past, when we either had the book or didn't, and took reserve requests that had to be filled in the office," says Karen Strauss of SFPL's Library on Wheels office.
The Topeka and Shawnee County (Kans.) Public Library has been offering Internet access on two of its three bookmobiles since July 1997. As with SFPL, these are staff workstations, but the added value of online reference services has been "successful to date," says Outreach Services Manager Robert Banks. Among its other advantages, the Internet lightens the vehicle's load, since so many question-answering tools are now online.
Finally, Bruce Monley of the Public Libraries Division of the State Libraries of Queensland wrote to politely point out that libraries down under were way ahead of us. Not only do a number of bookmobiles in Australia offer Internet access, but a bookmobile conference held in March was called "Bookmobiles to Cybermobiles." Conference proceedings are online, and the Web site devoted to bookmobiles is well worth browsing if you're thinking of going this route.
Talk about it
Finally, just in case you thought there weren't enough library discussion lists already, there is indeed one for bookmobiles, and members discuss Internet access as well. Send a message to listserv@listserv.clarion.edu and in the body of the message type "subscribe BKMOB-L Yourfirstname Yourlastname."
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