Mainstreet Radio’s Mark Steil reports that county governments in Minnesota are in a financial squeeze as state and federal grants decline. They must either cut services or find new revenue sources. In southwest Minnesota, a bookmobile with a roadrunner painted on its side is directly in the path of the funding dilemma. People who use it say it's foolish to cut a service which enriches minds.
[This file was digitized with the help of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)]
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MARK STEIL: The Plum Creek Roadrunner Bookmobile rolls into the tiny town of Avoca on a below zero morning and finds a welcoming committee on the edge of town.
LORI EVERS: I have to slow down here for the dog going down the middle of the road, doesn't want to get over.
MARK STEIL: Librarian Lori Evers stops here with the roadrunner every two weeks. Patrons check out books, videos, magazines, and audio tapes.
LORI EVERS: They park on Main Street across from the cafe and the post office. And we're parked there so the people who work at the stores and the businesses here can come to the bookmobile without any-- losing any work time.
MARK STEIL: For Avoca postmaster Mary Galles, service is even better than that. Roadrunner driver Richard Moore crosses the street and hand delivers several books to her in the post office. This will be the last time she gets new volumes. Bookmobile service ends March 1.
MARY GALLES: Priorities need to be reexamined. Definitely reexamined. Every time you read a book or a magazine article or a newspaper, you learn something. We're taking it away. We're making it more difficult for people to be informed.
MARK STEIL: Plum Creek Bookmobiles based in Worthington and Marshall have crisscrossed nine Southwest Minnesota counties for almost 22 years. They visit small towns such as Avoca, but also stop at schools and nursing homes. Sometimes a bookmobile stops on a county road miles from the nearest town so that farm families can pick up books.
The price of providing the service has increased as the cost of books, fuel, salaries, and other items needed for a bookmobile have risen. At the same time, the number of people using the roadrunner has declined slightly. Plum Creek board chair Ron [? Hsiung ?] says the increased cost of operating the bookmobile has not been matched by increased contributions from counties belonging to the system.
SPEAKER: Eight out of the nine counties said no, they would not give us more money for bookmobile service, and that laid it on the line for us right there. We knew at that time that we were facing a very difficult situation.
MARK STEIL: Without financial help from the counties, [? Hsiung ?] says there's no way to continue the roadrunner. Technology also played a role in ending the bookmobile. [? Hsiung ?] says libraries are developing online information services which patrons can reach with their home computers. He says many libraries would rather spend money on those kinds of projects than on bookmobiles.
SPEAKER: It's very expensive to put a bookmobile out on the road today. And unless you have got the means to keep it, you really have to look for another service that's going to reach as many people, if not more people, for the amount of dollars that you have. And I think technology is where we're going to be headed with that.
MARK STEIL: The benefits and shortcomings of technology have affected bookmobile service in other parts of the state. Sharon Gunkel heads the Minnesota Library Association Group, which studies issues affecting mobile library services. She says while most regional libraries still offer a bookmobile, they're all feeling the squeeze.
SHARON GUNKEL: The funding crunch that libraries have gone through in the state of Minnesota has definitely impacted bookmobiles, probably more than any other library function.
MARK STEIL: Gunkel says some systems have cut back the number of bookmobile stops they make. When the Plum Creek Roadrunner goes out of business in Southwest Minnesota, a group of Worthington residents who live only a few blocks from a library will be among those mourning the loss.
MARY ELLEN HAMMAR: I'll be sad when it quits because I cannot walk to the library.
MARK STEIL: Mary Ellen Hammar lives in an assisted living home called Prairie House. The roadrunner stops there every two weeks. The bookmobile driver and the librarian know all the readers at Prairie House by their first name. Hammar says books are not the only thing this bookmobile delivers.
MARY ELLEN HAMMAR: Rich and Lori are very nice. And they have got to know the ones that I like. And so they come with smiles, and they come with four or five books, or six books that you can pick from. You don't have to take the ones that they suggest. But it's so nice to have them come.
MARK STEIL: Some of the counties losing the bookmobile are planning alternative services. In Nobles County, patrons can order books by phone. The volumes will be transported by an existing bus service to designated drop-off points.
Some counties, though, have no alternative plans. For the small towns and farms in those areas, the end of the bookmobile with a roadrunner on its side means the end of library service. This is Mark Steil, Main Street Radio.