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Bookmobile, 1928

Cory Doctorow at 3:16 pm Tue, Apr 17, 2012

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This bookmobile for the sick was wheeled around Los Angeles hospitals in 1928, a service of the LA public library.

Bookmobile

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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  • Jake0748

    Is it weird that I have a little crush on Bookmobile Lady? 

  • nox

    Hello cross-contamination. That bookmobile probably killed people.

    • AlexG55

      As did the nurses’ uniforms, and the visitors, and…
       Actually, books can survive certain methods of sterilisation, and by the 20s they may have been doing that at least if the books/bookmobile were in contact with people with specific communicable diseases.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        We discovered that the curtains around the beds were the biggest source of resistant organisms.

        • digi_owl

          Are there not also issues with computer keyboards these days?

  • http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC

    I think I found a replacement for my bookbag.

  • http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

    “And how are we feeling today, Mrs. Prunwickett? We have a nice reading selection today! Here is a Bible, here is another Bible, here are volumes 4 and 7 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and look! Another Bible!”

  • Jake0748

    Maybe she’s reading “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” by Thornton Wilder, which was the best selling novel of 1928.  :)  

  • pjcamp

    “Please place your book in the reshelving section.”

    Why do the bookmobile got so much back?

  • JhmL

    Hospital? Damn the fine print, I looked at the pic and thought of a desperate lover doing everything she can to keep her lady, including even building this thing to feed those lazy ass reading habits of hers. *squeak squeak* “- Jesus! Oil those wheels, then come fluff my pillow!” *deep sigh of resignation* “- Yes, Molly…”

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1088606472 Thomas D. Walker

    Thanks for the excellent example and photo! Do you have more similar ones?

  • http://twitter.com/bookmobility Derek Attig

    This reminded  me of a popular way of representing bookmobiles in the mid-twentieth century, as a technology that could mobilize not just books but readers themselves:

    http://bookmobility.org/post/21344283379/bookimmobility

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/YFNP5NUCN7FFR5MKGDZANVTEGQ Oliver

    A nice precursor of the E-Reader…

  • http://aqfl.net Ant

    I remember bookshelves on wheels back in the mid 1980s/80s in Children Hospital in Philadelphia when I had my surgeries! Does that count?