Happy Birthday Bookmobile!

This week the Iowa City Public Library's Bookmobile celebrates its first anniversary of taking Library services on the road and what a GREAT YEAR it has been!

We drove 6,000 miles, greeted over 12,000 visitors and checked out more than 20,000 items. In the summer we averaged 7 checkouts per mile.

We had 79 storytime programs in or near the Bookmobile with 2,650 attendees.

We answered over 1,000 questions and collected over 4,000 items from the Downtown collection that were returned to the Bookmobile.

We have taken thousands of Holds from the Downtown collection to the Bookmobile for convenient pick-up at locations across the community that offer free parking and easy access to the Bookmobile. In March 2018 alone we sent 399 Holds from the Downtown collection to the Bookmobile.

Our busiest stops are Breckenridge Estates, Helen Lemme Elementary, Mark Twain Elementary, Mercer Park, Oaknoll Retirement Community and University of Iowa Community Credit Union (Mormon Trek) - over 1,000 items was checked out at each of these stops since July 1, 2017.

We've learned a lot over the past year. We've rotated where collections are shelved on the Bookmobile, added more items people asked for (Cookbooks, Graphic Novels, Large Print, more Nonfiction) and adjusted the schedule based on what we learned about the time it takes to drive between stops and prepare the Bookmobile each day for service.

If you haven't visited the ICPL Bookmobile yet, please plan a visit. A full schedule is available at www.icpl.org/bookmobile. We'll see you in the community!

PS - Watch for our summer schedule that runs June 4th through August 17th. We're adding a couple stops and planning for Stories in the Park programs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.