Calaveras County Library Receives New Bookmobile

Calaveras, CA– The state library in 2020 sent Calaveras County Library $120,000 in grant money, and combined with $75,000 received from the local friends of the library, Calaveras County was able to purchase a new vehicle. The bookmobile will be delivering library books and services to Calaveras residents in places that do not have easy access to the library.

An example of some of the places being serviced will be Foothills Village and weekly runs to Westpoint on days that food bank services are offered. One of the goals is to service Highway 26  and the communities in that area. More remote areas would receive monthly visits instead of weekly ones, including locations like Dorrington, Camp Connell, and the Diggins in Murphys. Currently, the library is in talks with senior centers to set up visits to those locations. The full schedule is currently being worked on while the bookmobile is being fully stocked and licensed.

The bookmobile was custom built for the needs of Calaveras County Library and is brand new. The bookmobile will be stocked with books, audiobooks, films, a laptop for public use, a Chromebook, and services like children’s programming.

As far as the impact this will have on the community, Nancy Giddens the Head Librarian for Calaveras County explains, “We’re calling this, and rightly so, a mobile branch, so what this does for the county is to enable library service to areas that we will never have a brick and mortar building. We can serve areas that have asked for library services where we have not been able to deliver them”

The tentative plan is to get the bookmobile on the road in July.