We did it! From June to November 2017 (only 5 1/2 months), the Digital Bookmobile held 69 events at public libraries and schools in 63 cities, 25 states, and 1 Canadian province. Cheers to an incredibly successful 2017 tour!

Highlights

• 8,526 – Total number of people who visited the Digital Bookmobile
• 757 – Of the 8,526 visitors, 757 were amazing library and school staff
• States – The Digital Bookmobile visited AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MI, MO, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, UT, and WI
• Canada – The Digital Bookmobile visited 5 cities in the province of Ontario (Canada 150 blog post)
• Libby – OverDrive rolled out their one-tap reading app to new users in June 2017, right as the Digital Bookmobile hit the road!

Where to Next?

The 2018 tour will start early February in sunny California and will run until November. In the meantime, we are preparing a full year of amazing events. Just think how many places we can visit in 10 months!

Eureka! We hit gold in California with six great Digital Bookmobile events. These were all great, but we’re going to highlight three that really stood out.

10/28 Buena Park Library District

Who needs Taco Tuesday when you can have Taco Saturday at your local library?! Buena Park Library District offered free taco plates to patrons who learned about eBooks and more during their Digital Bookmobile event. This drew in quite the lunch crowd as we saw a total of 166 patrons, many whom were unaware that the library offered so many digital titles for free!

11/3 California Library Association (CLA)

When patterns are broken, New Worlds Emerge. This was the guiding theme at this year’s California Library Association Conference. OverDrive was a sponsor during this three day event and brought along its new and improved 42-foot long Digital Bookmobile to the second day!

Library staff from around the state got a chance to see the Digital Bookmobile and request it to visit their home library. It was great to hear that a majority of visitors offered OverDrive at their libraries and that they enjoyed our new app Libby!

11/7 Santa Clara High School

What happens when you host 10 minute class presentations on the Digital Bookmobile? You get to see 444 students! We saw a lot of students at Santa Clara High School during English classes and drop-in times.

During drop-in time, students went right to the devices, put on a pair of headphones, and started browsing digital titles on the Digital Bookmobile. We overheard one student tell her friend, “We should both read this book and then discuss it,” while browsing the digital collection on an iPad.

Overall, we had a great time in California and look forward to visiting in 2018! View our Flickr page to browse more photos from our events.

The Digital Bookmobile gets a lot of curious visitors with a lot of curious questions. As the full time staff member traveling with the vehicle, I get to hear all of them. Heck, when I started traveling with the digital bookmobile six months ago, I wanted to know the same thing! Here are the most frequently asked questions… and answers… I get on the road.

Do you drive this?

No. We contract a driver through Legacy and the driver must have a commercial driver’s license (CDL). It’s a big Toterhome!

Do you sleep on here?

I don’t, but the driver does. In the front cabin, there is a twin bed, sink, microwave, mini refrigerator, and TV for the driver. Think tiny house. The Digital Bookmobile typically stops at a truck stop for the night and OverDrive staff spend the night in a hotel.

Where do you sit when it’s moving?

When the Digital Bookmobile closes up for the day, we slide the walls in and lock up the back. No one can be in the vehicle while it’s moving except the driver. OverDrive staff and I drive a separate rental car to and from events.

Do you get to travel everywhere with the Digital Bookmobile?

Yes! I am the current full-time staff member on the Digital Bookmobile, executing all events for our North American tour. A second OverDrive team member will typically join me for two events in a row then return to the office in Cleveland, OH. Staff at OverDrive have the chance to sign up to the Digital Bookmobile roster to work with the public at a Digital Bookmobile event. Our driver is also hired full-time and travels to all events.

It smells new.

This isn’t a question, but we often hear, “This smells like a new car!” The current Digital Bookmobile was finished in June of 2017, so it’s still pretty new! And we Swiffer, does that help? The old Digital Bookmobile retired at the end of 2015.

Those are the top five questions I get on the Digital Bookmobile. Have one of your own? Leave a reply and we’ll answer it for you!

Photo Credit: Kevin Brown/State Fair of Texas

This October, the Digital Bookmobile visited the Lone Star State. We began our trip by visiting two elementary schools near Dallas and finished by visiting two public libraries near San Antonio. We saw excitement, diversity, and creativity among events.

10/11 Central Elementary – Lewisville ISD

The Digital Bookmobile hosted six, 45-minute presentations to fifth grade classes at Central Elementary. Presentations provided an overview of their school’s digital library where students can borrow up to three eBooks or audiobooks at a time. Central has a large Hispanic population so we were able to highlight their vast collection of Spanish titles. Students were also excited to see many eBooks of interest, especially Minecraft, a video game series.

10/12 Gentry Elementary – Mesquite ISD

Who knew fourth graders were so much fun? The entire fourth grade class of 140 students at Gentry Elementary took a trip to their parking lot to visit the Digital Bookmobile. With iPads in hand, students browsed their digital collection while OverDrive staff demonstrated on a large 75″ TV.

Staff at Gentry Elementary said, “”It was a great day! Students were fully engaged and learned about our digital library! Bookmobile staff was very friendly and helpful!”

Watch this ADORABLE video of the event on YouTube.

10/14 San Antonio Public Library

We took part in Landa Branch Library’s Grand Reopening and 70th Anniversary Celebration. With a myriad of activities planned outside, the Digital Bookmobile fit right in. Some fun activities for the celebration included the Digital Bookmobile, crafts, ballet workshop, face painting, balloon artist, live music, book sale, and a reading village with teepees!

Even a police officer joined in on the fun and downloaded the Libby app while posted near the Digital Bookmobile. Over 120 visitors in this walking community learned about additional ways to read for free through their digital library.

10/15 San Marcos Public Library

Library staff Patsy Liao and Suzanne Sanders were rock stars at San Marcos Public Library! They encouraged  patrons, especially senior citizens, to bring their electronic devices onto the Digital Bookmobile to get set up with their digital collection of eBooks, audiobooks, and video. San Marcos Public Library visited retirement centers ahead of time to distribute flyers as a marketing tool. Users of all ages stopped on though, including several students from the University of Texas who were excited to download the Libby app.

The excitement of students, diversity in population, and creativity of events were the perfect mix for four amazing events. More photos from our events “deep in the heart of Texas” can be viewed on Flickr.