ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — For 40 years, the Baldwin County Bookmobile has been bringing books and more to people who can’t easily make it to a library.

That tradition continues, and the Baldwin County Public Library unveiled the “new” bookmobile on Wednesday, April 14 The event celebrated the American Library Association’s National Bookmobile Day.

Actually, make that the new old bookmobile. The bookmobile is a modified 1996 bus all fitted out to be a mobile branch library.

It has been making its way from Little River to Orange Beach every week. The Bookmobile has been refurbished, just in time for the celebration with the help of local legislators and businesses.

“We bring library services to places where people can’t easily get to a library,” explained Liz Reed, the director of the Baldwin County Library Cooperative.

With more than 3,000 books, Reed said, the Bookmobile is a familiar sight at retirement centers, day care centers, the ARC, public and private schools that don’t have libraries of their own.

“We’re the county library,” said Reed. ”We handle outreach for the rest of the county.”

The library changes the stock in the Bookmobile regularly. A visit to the vehicle last week showed a good range of current bestsellers along with classics. The “children’s” section of the bookmobile had numerous brightly-colored titles, from picture books and beginning readers on up to the not-quite-adult level. The youngsters have some books loaded with tapes or CDs, so there is someone to read aloud to them, even when adults are too busy.

And patrons can place orders for books they’d like to have.

“We have some patrons who place regular orders,” chuckled Ray Shore, one of the librarians who staff the bus.

Carol Revel is the other librarian, and Reed says both, “Take their mission very seriously.”

Both take pride in being able to bring a full-fledged library to people who might not have the chance to get to their town’s library. The only difference Reed says between the Bookmobile aside from size. is that the computerized catalog used in the Bookmobile has to be synchronized with the main computer ever day.

“Someday we will have Wi-Fi or something like that,” Reed said.

Revel delights in seeing the patrons aboard the bus. Youngsters are given instructions on how to treat the library books (don’t lay them flat open, it breaks the spine, and don’t “dog-ear” the pages to mark your place.) and Revel has plenty of large-sized bookmarks for them to use.

“People are so grateful (for the Bookmobile) and so glad to see us,” said Revel.

The Bookmobile’s schedule can be found on the Baldwin County Library Cooperative’s Web site. gulftel.com/bclc/bookmobile/schedule.htm, or by calling the Library Cooperative office at (251) 970-4010.