At one point, the library operated two bookmobiles - a big bus-sized
vehicle named Uncle Remus and a much smaller van called Gulliver.

During the school year, the bookmobiles mainly served rural schools in Cabell and Wayne counties.
During the summers, their routes were re-designed to take adults into account as well.

Thus, a typical summer day for one of the bookmobiles might have included roadside stops at a fire station,
a church, a rural grocery store or maybe even a gas station. At each stop, the bookmobile would be greeted
by a group of youngsters and adults waiting with books in hand, ready to check in those they've read
and check out a stack of new titles.

But the bookmobile era came to an end in 1995 when the library's Board of Trustees -
citing increasing costs and declining circulation - called a halt to the service.

Library Director Judy Rule noted that bookmobile circulation had declined from a high of 80,000
books a year to 30,000, while the library system had expanded its network of branch libraries,
now serving neighborhoods once reached only by bookmobile. Continuing the service
 would require purchasing a new $80,000 vehicle, an outlay the library
 simply couldn't afford, she said.

"It's kind of sad," Rule told The Herald-Dispatch in an interview after the decision.
"I grew up in Fayette County and my first contact with the library was the bookmobile.
 It's kind of like closing a community school. But times have changed."

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