Description:
With the arrival of new library director Clarence Paine in 1949, Oklahoma City Libraries embarked on an ambitious outreach program. Programs were put in place to deliver books to the homebound or hospitalized as well as a system that projected a microfilmed book onto the ceiling for immobilized patients. Paine also fostered cooperative realtionships with area civic and service clubs. One such relationship, with the Junior League, netted the Library its first mobile unit. Not a “bookmobile” like we normally think of where readers come to a parked trailer for books, this mobile unit delivered books (projected and otherwise) to the homebound. In this photo, Mrs. Dan Hogan of the Junior League hands over the keys to the 1949 Dodge panel truck to Mayor Allen Street. The truck served the Library for nearly 25 years. It eventually became a maintenance vehicle and was auctioned off to a local teenager in 1973.