THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 12, 1995 TAG: 9505110180
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURIE ZIEGLER, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
A bus loaded with goodies rumbled into the parking lot at Thoroughgood Elementary School last Friday.
Students trooped aboard eagerly, pored over the selection and left clutching two choices each.
The children have two weeks to devour them. After that, they're overdue.
While the school's library undergoes renovations, Thoroughgood has become the newest stop on the route of the Virginia Beach Bookmobile. Like an ice cream truck for the mind, it's proving to be a popular attraction, and one that educators hope will generate a sweet tooth for reading.
``They've really been excited about it,'' said school librarian Debbie Zeigler. ``Most of them have never seen a bookmobile before. Hopefully they'll take a book home, start reading and discover it's fun.''
The mobile library, designed to serve neighborhoods without a branch library, made its first stop at the school April 21. Kindergartners got a tour. First- through fifth-graders who have a city library card can check out books.
Fifth-grader Megan Drake, 10, got her own card just for this occasion, though children can use a parent's card. She said the bookmobile was ``cool.'' ``It's got a lot of books - a lot of books that I haven't seen,'' she said.
Megan checked out a book about dolphins. Sitting cross-legged or kneeling on the gray carpet, the children ran their fingers across the plastic-covered spines printed with titles such as ``Me and Fat Glenda,'' ``The Tremendous Tree Book,'' ``The Gift of the Pirate Queen'' and ``Snot Stew.''
Parent volunteer Lillian Swain fielded requests for author R.L. Stine's children's mystery and horror books, horse books, manatee books and books about Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Nine-year-old third-grader Bobby Redmond wanted a book about the Loch Ness Monster. One of those failed to surface, however, and he went home with ``The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus'' and a book about acid rain.
Children especially seem to like the bookmobile, Swain said. ``It's cozy. It's small. Maybe . . . they're not intimidated by a big building.''
Sixty-five percent of the bookmobile's customers on its regular route are children. The 34-foot bus holds 3,000 items, including books, magazines, tapes and compact discs, said bookmobile supervisor Debbie Wolcott. It makes 15 regular stops each week, mostly to neighborhoods in the southern part of the city. The 8-year-old unit has 68,195 miles on the odometer.
The bookmobile will come to Thoroughgood weekly until June. An estimated 150 children will check out materials during each visit. Since children must have a public library card to use the bookmobile, several got cards in April and May. ``This is orienting them more to the public library,'' said bookmobile librarian Susan Head. By fall, the school library should be back in business, with an additional 1,568 square feet - about double its previous size. The construction also will add five classrooms, new restrooms and office space, according to Linda Cooke, library assistant. The renovated library also will have a new computerized card catalog.
Although the bookmobile has visited schools before for tours, this is the first time it has made regular stops to a school for checkout, Zeigler said. Five or six other schools in the city are undergoing similar renovations that will carry over to fall. That may be more than the bookmobile can service, she said, but the stops at Thoroughgood are ``sort of a trial run.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LAURIE ZIEGLER
Like an ice cream truck for the mind, the bookmobile is a popular
attraction with students at Thoroughgood Elementary.
by CNB