Last spring, the Hood River library system went on the road with a bookmobile that travels to rural communities throughout the county. The van offers books, DVD players, laptops and free wifi to patrons. This summer, the bookmobile started offering other services as well, including hygiene kits, cold water on hot days, and meals to school-age kids. Yelitza Vargas-Boots, the bilingual outreach librarian for the Hood River County library district, joins us to explain the services of the bookmobile.
Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Last Spring, the Hood River County Library went on the road with a bookmobile that travels to rural communities throughout the county. The van offered patrons books, DVDs, players, laptops and free Wi-Fi. This past summer - I shouldn’t say past, we still have a little bit longer, I think it’s taking kids to school, it makes me feel like summer’s over. Anyway, this summer, it started providing other services as well including hygiene kits, cold water on hot days and meals to school age kids. Yelitza Vargas-Boots is a bilingual outreach librarian for the Hood River County library district. She joins us now to talk about the bookmobile. Welcome to the show.
Yelitza Vargas-Boots: Thank you for having me. Mucho gusto.
Miller: It’s great to have you on. Where did the idea for the bookmobile come from?
Vargas-Boots: Honestly, this is a project in the making. It’s been over a period of 10 years. We did a lot of on the ground work in the communities before we started, but it developed throughout the pandemic.
Miller: The pandemic was connected to its final creation.
Vargas-Boots: Final decision, yes.
Miller: What have you been hearing before that from community members?
Vargas-Boots: Like you said, we live in a rural county/area of Oregon. There’s a lot of financial barriers, physical barriers, language barriers. And it’s just that the accessibility is not there. And just a lot of education around what libraries are in our community is a big thing as well. So we had to develop all of this and lay out the groundwork and just the biggest thing is accessibility and time.
Miller: Can you give us a sense for the populations that you most had in mind when you developed this?
Vargas-Boots: Yeah, of course. So coming from an immigrant and migrant background myself, one of our largest populations where there’s no physical branch because there’s Hood River, Cascade Locks, Parkdale and Odell and Odell being one of the areas where we do not have a physical library nor is there immediate access to the internet, Wi-Fi public restrooms or anything like that, that was one of our biggest main focuses for the longest time.
Miller: What are the most popular services that you offer?
Vargas-Boots: In general or just in Odell?
Miller: Through this bookmobile?
Vargas-Boots: The most popular services are obviously our books, but we also offer DVDs, we have portable laptops and portable DVD players. That’s actually a big popular item. A lot of folks don’t have those resources at home. Wi-Fi and internet is a huge one as well and a lot of, like you said, our essential kits and board games. We have a “library of things” where people can check out items that they may not have at home. And then we offer just prizes and snacks and so those are pretty popular with the little kids.
Miller: What’s it like? Are you in this bookmobile?
Vargas-Boots: Yes, I am.
Miller: What’s it like when you roll up to a community?
Vargas-Boots: Oh my gosh. It’s so exciting. It’s just so much happiness. Like I said, we’ve been developing this program. The community knows me, they know my face. I think that’s one of the biggest pieces to it is making that connection. And so when they see me and see my face or see our staff and our faces with this big blue bus, they’re already waiting for us. They’re super excited and it’s just so fun.
Miller: And they’re waiting with say the DVDs and the books that they got the week before and they’re ready to get new ones?
Vargas-Boots: Yeah. Every single time. Sometimes we’re like, ok, you got to go get your books and then they’re like, ok, just wait for me, like five minutes. So they’ll run home and come back and bring back their items. Yeah.
Miller: How much access would some of the people that you’re serving have to get books or these other media if you weren’t there?
Vargas-Boots: Probably like 15% of the population would have access directly to the library. It’s a bit ways to drive and there’s not a lot of access to those items. I think there used to be like a little Red Box where people could rent DVDs but that’s coming out of their pockets.
Miller: And so you mentioned the hygiene kits and giving and in addition to food and water, those are basic necessities. It seems really different from our traditional understanding of the role that libraries play in society, of providing books and information and community. Are you essentially just trying to patch holes in a safety net full of holes?
Vargas-Boots: No. I think that that idea flourished from again the pandemic and just it would be kind of silly of us to not realize that our current situation in society, society and economic crisis we’re dealing with right now and seeing our community itself experience such a necessity that this is like the very bear that we could provide is so essential to our community. We don’t have a center for houselessness. We don’t have an immediate center for folks to just access resources. I believe that these essential kits are resources and everybody should have access to them.
Miller: Why did you want to become a librarian?
Vargas-Boots: I think it’s something that developed over time. I moved to Hood River County back in 2011 and I started my career working with children and families and then I became a little bit more knowledgeable with our county library. And I saw this position for children’s services assistant and I knew that I wanted to work with children more than anything. So I believed in myself and I was like, I really want to do this. So it was more than anything working with children that brought me to the library.
Miller: How much access did you have to a library when you were growing up?
Vargas-Boots: I did not have access to a library at all. I think the closest library was in downtown and that was a long way away from where I lived. I didn’t know what a library was growing up, honestly. I didn’t really figure out what libraries were until I was in high school.
Miller: Do you ever think about that when you’re driving in and seeing?
Vargas-Boots: Every single day, every single day I think about. I put myself in the shoes of these children that we serve and the families, even just older adults because I see my family in these communities. And I was just like that was me. That is me. So I think about what this would have done for myself as a child, what it could have done for my peers, my family.
Miller: My understanding from the articles I read about this is that the money for the actual bookmobile itself came largely from community donations, but operating funding has come from the state library which has been giving out federal pandemic dollars.
Vargas-Boots: Yes.
Miller: But there’s an expiration date on pandemic relief, an unprecedented amount of money sent out from the federal government and it’s being spent now. What happens when that’s gone?
Vargas-Boots: Well, luckily, I strongly believe in our community and like I said, the community raised this money just for the bookmobile alone having that foundation already there. We have a very strong foundation. We have our Friends of the Library, we have a library foundation, our board and our library director. So we have certain funds that are allocated yearly. I think with all these things and just having that support, we can continue to grow. And like I said, there are other grants that are continuously put out there. So there are things that we can apply for in the future.
Miller: You’re now the vice chair of the State Library Board. What do you see as the future of libraries? In particular, how do you think libraries can better serve their communities?
Vargas-Boots: Well, I think that one of the biggest things is that we need to really think outside the boxes. I see the community and I see the needs and I see that especially in rural libraries, they’re coming to libraries for some sort of relief, emotional relief, just like an escape, something to like, takes your mind away from what’s going on, even for resources and access. And I think that it’s our duty and responsibility to meet our communities where they are depending on our locations where we are at because not everybody has that immediate access to drive down or walk down to a library.
Miller: I don’t know that I thought about a library as a provider of relief before. It does sound like the evolution of this very particular institution.
Vargas-Boots: Like I said, I think that having a really strong backing is really important and people that believe in you are really, really crucial to this work.
Miller: What do you hope to do next at the Hood River Library?
Vargas-Boots: Oh, man, that’s a big question. I’m not sure. I think that the ideas will come as the needs flourish. I really, really listen to our community and the needs of our community. My biggest thing is just serving in a way that is not the way that I think is best, but what I hear the community needs. And just continuing to grow and educating folks and having folks really take ownership of libraries because the libraries are for the community, they are for the people. And we need to listen to our communities, listen to what’s needed.
Miller: Yelitza Vargas-Boots, thanks very much for coming in.
Vargas-Boots: Thank you.
Miller: Yelitza Vargas-Boots is the bilingual outreach librarian for the Hood River County library district.
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