Paso Robles is going to get its first library on wheels, a bookmobile that will help the City Library further achieve its goal to make books more accessible throughout the community.
At the Nov. 19 City Council meeting, the council unanimously voted to accept the gift of a new Ford Transit 350 into its fleet, which was purchased and donated by local nonprofits Paso Robles Library Foundation and Friends of the Paso Robles Library.
Community Services Director Angelica Fortin said that the new $74,735 vehicle will help the library to overcome recent “logistical difficulties” it’s faced with its strategic plan—a plan designed to improve library outreach, adopt improved technology, and diversify services to meet the needs of all community groups.
Fortin said that the Paso Robles City Library has tried to operate a functioning mobile library for the past couple of years, providing services to places like the Paso Robles Housing Authority, schools, and home delivery for residents who are medically homebound using an SUV that was previously retired from another department’s fleet.
“This has been very challenging,” she said at the Nov. 19 meeting.
Now that the van has been accepted into the city’s fleet, the city will cover the costs of maintenance, fuel, and keeping the vehicle running, which was already included in the city’s 2024-25 fiscal budget according to the staff report.
However, the van still needs some work to make it an operational library such as a mechanical lift for materials and patrons, shelving, and exterior wrapping. Paso Robles Library Foundation said it intends to help pay for the features, according to its letter included in the staff report.
Fortin told New Times that she hopes the new bookmobile will allow the library to further its mission of providing as many resources as possible to the community which is something the library didn’t have capacity to do before the strategic plan was established in 2022.
“Really we’re just looking to make life better, right?” she said. “Give people some really wonderful quality of life experiences and get resources out to the folks that need and want them.”
The strategic plan has also provided the library with a new specialist dedicated to community outreach, who was hired in 2023.
Outreach Services Librarian Taylor Worsham told New Times that the new mobile library will provide resources to areas that may not have otherwise received access.
“The bookmobile is a huge part of that—to go to areas of the city that people who live there can’t necessarily make it to the downtown library. So, we’ll be able to come to them now and expand access to collections and to trusted sources of information, and just see us as librarians as friendly faces,” Worsham said.
The bookmobile will run like a classic library, Worsham said. Patrons can sign up for a library card right at the vehicle and check out books stocked from the library in both English and Spanish.
While there isn’t an exact time frame of the vehicle’s completion, Worsham said they hope to have the bookmobile fully operational by June so it can be used for the library’s summer reading program.
The Paso Robles Library Foundation is currently accepting donations for the needed bookmobile features. Donate at prlibraryfoundation.com/donate. Δ
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2024.