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Bookmobiles have a new mission: delivering banned books

Readers queuing outside a bookmobile, or mobile library, in Washington, D.C., circa 1955. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Readers queuing outside a bookmobile, or mobile library, in Washington, D.C., circa 1955. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Last year, Florida passed three laws that collectively have given state-approved administrators and proxies the power to ban books from schools, and caused many teachers to empty or cover their bookshelves for fear of prosecution.

Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed for the legislation, which includes the derisively nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” law, prohibiting instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity. The “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” bars teaching that implies someone is privileged or oppressed because of their race, color, gender or national origin. The third law, HB 1467 or the “K-12 Education Measure,” directs the regular removal of books that do not meet academic standards and results in the vetting of all books in classrooms and school libraries.

Because the criteria for rejecting books can be broadly interpreted, the resulting censorship is transforming Florida into the dystopian society of Ray Bradbury’s novel, "Fahrenheit 451," where new ideas are not tolerated and books are hunted and burned.

In response, a Sarasota bookstore called Shelf Indulgence is raising money for a Book Bus that will feature and sell banned books. Along other fronts of the culture war, bookmobiles are motoring around the country to bring banned books to all, especially in Texas, which has censored more books than any other state.

Anastyn Dirnberger, 4, browses the children's book in the Anythink Bookmobile in 2017 in Brighton, Colorado. The bookmobile allows the district to bring library service to residents outside of the service area of local Anythink locations. (Seth McConnell/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Anastyn Dirnberger, 4, browses the children's books in the Anythink Bookmobile in 2017 in Brighton, Colorado. The bookmobile allows the district to bring library service to residents outside of the service area of local Anythink locations. (Seth McConnell/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Against the prospect of a real "Fahrenheit 451," I have a nostalgia for bookmobiles, which date back to 1859 and a cart in Warrington, England. The first mobile library in the U.S. was a horse-drawn carriage serving isolated rural communities in 1905. The first motorized bookmobile appeared in 1912 and is the direct ancestor of the one that parked once a week by the side of my grade school. About the length of an average bus, in my recollection, the bookmobile sported faded green paint that was subdued and inviting like summer grass. It was a temple and visiting it was a ritual. Kids entered near the front, on the right side as with a bus, passed a low checkout station, and walked down an aisle with books on both sides and shelves to the ceiling.

Old sensations come back to me now: thin volumes that were big for little hands, crinkly plastic that protected colorful hardbound covers. Warm yellow lights shone down on the confined space, which had a slightly musty smell; the rubber floor was scuffed by all the boys and girls who walked across it. Carrying a stack of books was a balancing act as I, in the first grade, waited in line then stepped forward to hand them to the librarian, who stamped cards with the due date and slipped them into a pocket on the back cover.

When my older daughter was in the first grade, we visited the library at least once a week with a ritual of our own. I picked her up after class then we walked around the corner to a building that is part of the town center, next to the town hall, across from the police station and the fire station. She had her own library card, which of course she never had on hand. After picking her books, she took my card, swiped it under the barcode scanner then checked out the books by placing them on a device that read the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Before going home, we snacked at the library cafe, where she invariably asked for either a brownie or a chocolate chip cookie.

Sadly, my fond memories collide with today’s harsh reality, when books in Florida may be removed for ill-defined reasons, such as content that does not align with state academic standards or material that lacks relevancy to a curriculum. A violation of HB 1467 can bring felony charges and the state may revoke professional teaching certification for running afoul of the “Don’t Say Gay” law or the Stop W.O.K.E. Act.

With vague proscriptions and severe penalties, it takes only an abundance of caution, i.e. fear, for a teacher or librarian to withhold books from their students. So with a little sophistry — and much fear — the DeSantis administration is subverting education, driving academics to the lowest common denominator and indoctrinating a whitewashed picture of our diverse society.

Children browse through shelves of books inside the Boston Public Library's Roxbury-North Dorchester bookmobile while it is parked at Columbia Road and Washington Street in Boston on July 26, 1968. The four mobile libraries that travel all over the city aim to make the library accessible to anyone. (Photo by Joe Dennehy/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Children browse through shelves of books inside the Boston Public Library's Roxbury-North Dorchester bookmobile on July 26, 1968. The four mobile libraries that travel all over the city aim to make the library accessible to anyone. (Photo by Joe Dennehy/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Today’s rebel bookmobiles serve a vital role by bringing the perspectives and experiences of other, different lives, pushing against efforts to deny their existence. Books by Black authors, about Black history and slavery; books with issues concerning LGBTQ+ characters, Jewish characters, Asian characters; books about Indigenous peoples; books that portray the painful history of minorities in our country — these and many more have all recently been banned as objectionable to someone for some reason, often for the sin of causing discomfort to students.

While there is room for good faith discussions about appropriate reading material,  they should focus on academic choice and compromise among the immediate stakeholders — parents, students, teachers and librarians. DeSantis speaks of freedom, but without irony, he has taken freedom from parents and schools to serve a conservative nanny state and his own presidential ambitions.

In retrospect, and in light of today's partisanship and anti-intellectualism, I see the bookmobile of my childhood as an expression of optimism. The middle class was growing and growing prosperous, the new interstate highway system made long-distance transportation easy — and we were going to the moon. Though motivated by a fear of the Soviet Union, the space race created a new emphasis on education, especially in the areas of science and mathematics. Bookmobiles gave people —especially children — access to books and learning.

I have no idea what route the bookmobile followed after leaving my school. But as it traveled from place to place, it symbolized something that too often now seems lost: the value of literacy and education. In that same spirit, today’s bookmobiles roll onward to deliver the ideas deemed contraband by some states — if students cannot come to the books, the books will come to them.

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H. L. M. Lee Cognoscenti contributor
H. L. M. Lee is a writer, electronics engineer and owner of a small high-tech company. He also writes web content and marketing materials, and develops video scripts for a peer reviewed scientific journal.

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