Coconino County is purchasing a new mobile library to reach the farthest edges of what is one of the largest counties in the United States.
Just like its mainstay counterparts, the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Library Bookmobile offers a bit of everything: a touch of mystery, the opportunity to try something new. But instead of the reader coming to the stacks, the library goes to the readers. And as a rolling library, it has its own unique problems. Some involving Stephen King. More on that later.
Bekah Wilce is the Coconino County Bookmobile librarian.
On a crisp fall morning, she was wrapping up an inspection of the big colorful bus before heading out for the day to Mountain View Market in the outlying community of Doney Park, Wilce’s first stop.
She had to lighten the load on the bus to help with navigating the mud and high winds of the wilder parts of the county.
“This particular bus when it’s overloaded, the engine is not really powerful enough to pull it uphill well so it overheats,” she said.
Outside the market, the doors shutter open to greet Priscilla Trowbridge, the first visitor of the day. She finds it more convenient to take a short drive to the market and climb aboard than driving into town.
“So when she came with it, I thought wow this is great. We can talk and she gives me good books,” Trowbridge said, laughing. “I’ve just been reading about 'Grand Canyon Women' and 'Brave the Wild River.'”
With a rhythmic beeping of reverse warning lights, we’re off.
“We are off to the Leupp on the Navajo Nation,” Wilce says.
That’s about an hour away — “because the bus is slower than some vehicles,” she said laughing.
Wilce is a former journalist and off-grid farmer. In many ways, her life’s path intertwines with the large, squeaking bus rattling down Route 66, its metal shelves bouncing with every rhythmic crack on the old road.
“While I was looking for jobs, the position here in Flagstaff came open for a bookmobile librarian. And it was my dream job," Wilce said.
The 36-foot-long bus needed refurbishing; Wilce needed a commercial driver’s license to drive it.
“I had really missed you know, working the reference desk, working with people day to day to help them find information,” Wilce said.
The Bookmobile has about 150,000 miles, and Wilce adds to that on a weekly basis, crisscrossing America’s second-biggest county, stopping as far as the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
“We go to Jacob Lake on the way. We go to stops along Marble Canyon and the Vermilion Cliffs. We go all over Navajo Nation," Wilce said.
The bus also stops at various Navajo chapter houses and is still adding schools to its route.
“It’s maybe a little like a travel school bus in terms of its ability but mostly it’s just a large vehicle to do narrow dirt roads and sometimes muddy and other conditions.”
Then a sudden crash behind us.
“That’s the Stephen King shelf,” she said.
We rolled across eastern Flagstaff toward the Painted Desert and pull into a dirt lot across from the Leupp Chapter House.
“I’m still trying to figure out the best combination of visibility, and not getting stuck in the mud and being able to turn around again," Wilce says.
Wayne Hobson climbed aboard to return a slew of movies. And to browse through Wilce’s personal recommendations for him.
"I never went to school but I know how to read so all these books help me out to understand people’s lives and my life,” Hobson said.
Today he’s checking out Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
“That one’s complex.”
He’s also reading a history book of enslaved Native Americans and Cadillac Desert.
“That one was a great one. It made me think ‘wow, we’re all falling’,” he said.
Glady Riggs stopped in to refresh her reading collection at home. With Winslow 30 miles away and Flagstaff 45, this bookmobile stop once a month makes browsing easier.
She is into John Grisham, Amy Tan, but also — “I tend to go back to the old ones like 'Gone With the Wind.'”
Leupp Chapter House manager Vida J-Golaway considers the bookmobile a strong asset to the community. In the future she hopes to offer a children’s reading center and a computer literacy program at the chapter house.
But for now, “When we can get the bookmobile here, it’s wonderful. They have patrons that go and see them. I know that this past season, there’s been a couple of times when the Bookmobile wasn’t able to make it out here so we had to cancel on that day," J-Golaway said.
Fifty years ago Coconino County Supervisor Patrice Horstman was a passenger onboard the bookmobile.
“People came out. It was like a party. Families, their children, they all came out to join the Bookmobile. It was a very joyous day. So it has always held a very, very important place in my heart," Horstman said.
And so, the current iteration of the big, squeaky Bookmobile has served its mission.
“In 2019 for example, that bookmobile traveled over 19,000 miles traveling around the county. Made over 1,400 stops. And it was really a much loved and important part of some of the most isolated parts of Coconino County. We needed to do something," Horstman said.
The county's Board of Supervisors has approved purchasing a 24-foot bookmobile with the same flavor of the old one.
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