CROCKETT LIBRARY BRINGS THE BOOKS TO YOU

By Greg Ritchie

Messenger Reporter

CROCKETT – In a world where most information can be accessed in the palm of your hand, reading is becoming a lost art. For older people, you just can’t replace the feel of a good book in your lap; the joy of turning the pages faster to find out what will happen next. For our young people, teaching a love for reading can mean the difference between an educated and cultured person, to someone who misses out on a lot of the lessons great books can teach us.

For many elderly people and young children with two working parents, getting to the library can be hard. Within the next month the Crockett Library will be launching its mobile book program. A bus has been purchased and the outside paint job is under way. Soon, book racks will be installed in the interior.

Judy Scott, the Crockett Library Director, had the idea at the beginning of the year. She has been working with the library’s board of directors as well as the city to get the book mobile started.

“After COVID, little by little patrons started to come back in,” Scott said. “But I began to notice the was a large population of children that were not getting to come to the library and after I did some research into this community, I found we have a lot of children that live in this community are not coming into the community because either both parents work or because of the distance to get to the library.”

The bus will make rounds in the communities run by the Crockett Housing Authority where young people can check out books, and get a library card on the spot.

Kelley Stotts, Executive Director of the Crockett Housing Authority loved the idea from the beginning.

“I thought it was a wonderful idea; very creative to get these books out to the kids. A lot of the people in our areas do not have transportation and the kids depend on organizations that come in and help out,” Stotts said.

The library and the local housing authorities are also working to coordinate the routes the book mobile would take.

“We will have to decide where we are going to park because our main concern is that we have a safe place to park so that children won’t have to go back and forth across the street to get to the book mobile,” Scott commented.

The book mobile is also set to bring the library’s best works to the Crockett Senior Center. The bus has a lift so even a cart loaded with books could be taken into the senior center keeping the residents from having to walk to the bus.

Scott says the community has been very supportive of the initiative which she hopes to launch the first week of September. Donations are still welcome since the library must still finish buying the shelves and have them installed so they will be stable and safe for everyone.

Libraries, which can sometimes be forgotten or neglected in this modern age, remain a place of learning and knowledge in the community. The Crockett library hopes the book mobile project will bring greater appreciation for reading among new generations of readers.

Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]