An Ontario Bookmobile Film The Books Drive On, 1948

The Books Drive On. 16 mm film, colour and sound, 1948. Produced by Jean and Glen Eckmier, photography by Bob Henry and script by Tom Rafferty from CKNX radio.

Ontario libraries were late adopters of motorized bookmobile service. In the 19th century travelling library service by agencies in the UK and USA were innovative extension ideas to reach readers in unserved areas. In Canada, travelling libraries, boxes of books usually shipped to local communities or schools, were introduced first in British Columbia in 1898 by E.O.S, Scholefield, the Provincial Librarian and Archivist. In 1899, McGill University began serving areas in rural Quebec thanks to the sponsorship of Hugh McLennan. The Ontario Department of Education began its service to northern lumber camps in 1901. These systems proved to be so popular that they were expanded and continued for more than half a century before they were discontinued.

Canadian Bookmobiles Arrive on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts

The first Canadian motorized bookmobiles, which contemporaries often called book vans, book trucks, or libraries-on-wheels, appeared in the Maritimes and British Columbia as early as 1930. In two summers, 1930 and 1931, Acadia University operated two bookmobiles, one in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia and the other in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Each modified book truck carried 1,500 books and visited station stops eight times during the summer. Unfortunately, worsening economic conditions at the outset of the Great Depression forced the termination of this service. In the Fraser Valley, B.C., the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a regional library demonstration commencing in late summer 1930 that included a bookmobile service. It proved to be highly successful under the direction of notable librarians, Helen Gordon Stewart, the director and the assistant, Nora Bateson, who later championed regional services in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island before 1939.

 In Ontario, regional library systems developed slowly on a county basis. The improvement of transportation routes in the 1920s and 1930s provided the opportunity to deliver book collections more easily and rapidly via motorized vehicles. The Ontario Department of Highways financed the growth of a provincial highway network assisted by the Good Roads Association based in municipalities and counties. Major highway construction and secondary roads facilitated commercial truck traffic, inter-city bus lines, and private automobile travel. The formation of county library associations in the 1930s and then county library co-operatives after the Second World War occurred mostly in southwestern Ontario. By 1935, Lambton County trustees introduced a small two-wheeled trailer (‘book van’) with built-in shelving towed by a vehicle. Middlesex County began operating a small cabin-style book trailer carrying 1,200 books in 1940. These were not motorized bookmobiles and wartime rationing on gasoline and rubber halted further progress by county library associations until after 1945.

The Huron County Bookmobile

The Huron County Library Association was formed in 1941. Sixteen participating libraries agreed to pay an annual fee of $25 to share books transported by car on a rotating basis. In 1945, Mrs. Jean Eckmier became the county librarian and her husband, Glen, was hired as her assistant. For a few years they delivered books using their own car, but in 1947, the Huron County Library Cooperative purchased an imported American van adapted to bookmobile standards and nicknamed “Miss Huron” for just over $3000. It was the first driven bookmobile in Ontario, an International Harvester one-ton metro van, a type frequently used to deliver milk and bakery items to homes across North America after WW II. The body was built over the engine, thus giving more room for about 1,000 books. This compact model bookmobile was used to supply each participating library with 100 books on a quarterly rotating basis.

Angus Mowat, the Inspector of Public Libraries for the Ontario Department of Education, rode in the vehicle for two days in September 1947 and made a lengthy report with interesting observations in his notebook (pp. 513–514), which now resides at the D.B. Weldon Library at the Western University. A few of his excerpts follow:

The cab is built over [the] engine, thus allowing extra space in [the] rear. Front doors slide and driver's seat sets forward, giving wide entrance.
Truck is very easily handled and can turn in short space. Headroom 5' 7." Width of floor between shelving 4' 8." Shelves 8' long, six shelves high, house approximately 1000 [books]. Shelving is of wood made locally, and each edge has a 3/4" lip to keep books on. A hinged lip would be better, making it easier to remove the books when in action. Light by day is from the large windshield and windows in [the] rear doors. At night there is only a single dome lamp. Maybe they'll need more.
The general appearance of the vehicle is good. It is pained in a dark green, picked out by a lighter stripe.
Everything about the vehicle gives an impression of solidity and strength. It sides evenly and even though we went off on one or two quite rough detours the books did not offer to budge. I think, however, that dust may prove to be something of a problem. There will be heater and de-froster in winter.
Wherever we went on the two days I was out on exchange the van caused considerable interest, at least among the library people and small boys. In fact, on two occasions the small boys promptly invited themselves aboard and selected some of the books they wanted the librarian to take out.
I was surprised to see how quickly the exchanges were made [deposits and returns of 100 books per library]. The shortest one was 35 minutes and the longest about one hour. This is about twice as quickly as exchanges were made when trays were carried in a passenger automobile.

The Inspector also penned a short article about his ride through the farm fields and small county towns in the November 1947 issue of the Ontario Library Review with an enthusiastic comment, “The librarian didn’t sing, but I did.”

Late in 1947, the county library trustees and county council authorized the production of a 16 mm film featuring the new bookmobile and the work of Jean and Glen Eckmier with a grant from the county council. The energetic couple took charge of the entire production and enlisted the help of Tom Rafferty of the Wingham radio station, CKNX (known as the Farm Station), to compose the script and to provide its commentary. Bob Henry did the colour photography and Wilford T. Cruickshank, a previous library trustee and owner of CKNX, assisted in production. Shooting began in November 1947 and finished several months later in August 1948. During filming, Stanley Beacock, the chief librarian in Lambton County, drove Miss Huron to the Canadian Library Association gathering in Ottawa in June 1948 for a special session on transportation in regional and county work. The Huron bookmobile was one of three prominent exhibits at the conference.

This ‘amateur’ film was not remarkably different from other bookmobile motion pictures that featured visits to readers at stations and small libraries. Still, it had a quality of highlighting the rural features of Huron County—the dusty streets of small hamlets, busy street front stores, livestock, field crops, farm machinery, children, adults and seniors gathering their books, greenery and trees along county roadways, attractive streets of the county seat, Goderich, the sleekly designed bookmobile with its gold trimmed lettering, and the sunset at the end of the day. Libraries were popular throughout Huron and there were five existing Carnegie buildings: Brussels, Clinton, Exeter, Goderich, and Seaforth. Other libraries were located in smaller communities, such as Auburn, Bayfield, Blyth, Dungannon, Hensall, and Kirkton, as well as township schools. During its initial years, the film grew in popularity. The National Film Board contributed $2500 to purchase a negative print. Later, The Books Drive On was advertised for sale in the Library Journal and the Wilson Library Bulletin. By 1951, the film had been exhibited across Canada and the United States and had left a lasting impression of county library work in a rural setting.

County library bookmobiles appeared across rural Ontario during the 1950s: in Simcoe, Lambton, Middlesex, Peel, Kent, and other cooperative systems. These mobile units primarily refreshed collections in small local libraries and schools from a central county headquarters. In urban Ontario the bookmobile provided an extension service and they proved to be successful in cities such as Ottawa, Hamilton, and London. Expanding suburban municipal library boards, such as East York and North York, purchased bookmobiles to reach people directly at designated stops. Through the 1960s and 1970s bookmobiles continued to be popular, although improved branch library services across the province in cities and counties lessened their need to reach people. After 2000, bookmobile service again picked up and today (2025) there are about fifteen bookmobiles in operation across Ontario because it is reasonably economical and reaches many people who find it more convenient to use.

Jean Eckmier and her husband, Glen, remained with the Huron system until their retirement in 1961.

View the 35 minute film The Books Drive On on YouTube at this link.

My blog on the Library on Wheels, the 1945 Fraser Valley bookmobile film, is at this link.

My blog on two later Canadian bookmobile films is at this link.

Two Canadian films about bookmobiles: Roads to Reading and Journey from Zero

Roads to Reading. 16 mm film, colour, sound, 14 minutes, 1958. Produced by the Nova Scotia Film Bureau for the Nova Scotia Provincial Library. Directed by Margaret Perry with Alberta Letts as technical advisor.
Journey from Zero = La Longue Randonnée. 16 mm film, sound, colour, 13 minutes, 1961. National Film Board of Canada, Directed by Roger Blais.

By 1960, regional libraries were fairly well established in Canada. The sight of a bookmobile on Canada’s rural roadways was by now means novel anymore. In Nova Scotia, where regional services had begun in earnest in the late 1940s, there were five regional systems: Cape Breton (headquarters in Sydney), Annapolis Valley, Pictou County (headquarters in New Glasgow), Colchester-East Hants (headquarters in Truro), and the Halifax City Regional Library. In 1952, the province adopted a new library act that provided a comprehensive plan for a centralized direction and regional libraries to cover the entire province financed to the amount of more than 50 percent by the provincial treasury. A Provincial Library Service was established to encourage and assist the formation and operation of new regions. Despite the progress of the 1950s, there were still many areas, e.g., the area surrounding Halifax and Dartmouth, that remained outside regional services. Regions served about half the population of the province through 31 branches, schools, and bookmobiles.

Alberta Letts, the Director of the Provincial Library centred at Halifax, was an energetic leader who was not reluctant to try any measure to promote and form new regions. In concert with the Nova Scotia Film Bureau, a short documentary of how regional services could benefit Nova Scotians was introduced in 1958. It became a beneficial aid at local meetings and indeed gained some prominence across Canada, in part due to the remarkable efforts of two librarians. Alberta Letts was finishing her 1957–58 term as President of the Canadian Library Association, and another regional director at Cape Breton, Ruby Wallace, would assume the presidency of CLA in 1962–63.

Roads to Reading a Film on Public Libraries in Nova Scotia 1958

Roads to Reading was a short feature designed to offer a glimpse of everyday regional library work. At the outset, viewers see an Annapolis Valley bookmobile stop where people exchange books and pick up popular reading. The bookmobile serves fishing villages and farms alike with 1,500 books. Its services radiate out from a central staging point where books are sorted and selected for distribution. The film gives an overview of all the regional operations including branches at Glace Bay, Tatamagouche, and Reserve Mines where the branch memorializes Father Jimmy Tompkins’ efforts to introduce library services and promote adult education starting in the 1930s. Smaller places, such as the Air Force Station Greenwood, a post office, and even a bank vault, give a sense of community resourcefulness in supplying reading materials for all ages. The city of Halifax was an interesting case that served a single municipality through its well-resourced central library. Even the Legislative Library was part of the network of libraries serving Nova Scotians. The film’s concluding minutes provide a “how to” synopsis about forming a regional system from local committees, municipalities, and the final authorization by the provincial government. “Reading is always in season,” explains the narrator as the bookmobile disappears down a sunny roadway.

Journey from Zero a Film about Bookmobile Service in British Columbia 1961

Journey from Zero is less didactic and its quality ensured by the NFB production standards. In many ways, this film is a travelogue—a visit to Canada’s northern areas in British Columbia where books and reading are a welcome commodity to miners, forest workers, aboriginals, military personnel, seasonal tourists, and maintenance workers living along the Alaska Highway. JFZ’s director, Roger Blais, was an experienced NFB filmmaker who would later become the head of audiovisual production for Expo 67. The film begins at the Dawson Creek library, which is mile zero. Here a small book van is stocked with books for delivery to remote communities. These books are a free service from the British Columbia Library Commission operating from the Peace River Co-operative Library formed in 1952. Over the course of two weeks, the journey will take the van about 900 miles north as far as Whitehorse.

The librarian, Howard Overend, wrote about his experience in his book published in 2001, The Book Guy: A Librarian in the Peace: “The acting for Journey from Zero was minimal and without speaking parts. There was to be, Roger said, a voice-over in the film so all we had to do was to simulate our usual mobile library work: driving, carrying in the books, meeting the teachers and pupils, showing books to community librarians and so on.” The first stop came at mile 295—a military fire hall station in Muskwa, a now decommissioned armed forces garrison. Then on to Fort Nelson to a library located in a motel office manned by a volunteer. At mile 392, the small van reached Summit Lake, the highest point on the Alaska Highway, where a school housed a small collection of books. At the Liard River, miles 496, the van takes a short side trip for a swim in the hot springs, offering a welcome relief from the tedium of driving and traversing narrow roadways. Then on to Cassiar, a small settlement which is today a ghost town due to closure of an asbestos mine, and finally, Atlin, a small community created during the gold rush era. At this point, the van moves into the Yukon to visit Whitehorse, where a proposed regional library system was in development. The van has travelled about 900 miles and it is time to return home. The film closes with the idea that the world of literature is available to the world of mountains and forests in the farthest reaches of British Columbia, the Peace and Northern Rockies districts.

During the 1960s, these two films publicized the idea of bringing books to people through organized regional services. Alberta Letts went on to form five new regional library systems in Nova Scotia during the 1960s. Unfortunately, she died in a car accident in 1973. Howard Overend continued in the Peace district until the early 1970s until he left to become director of the Fraser Valley Regional Library and for a short time the Territorial Director for Yukon in the early 1980s. He passed away in 2017. Roger Blais was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000.

 Roads to Reading can be viewed on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhmrRFG7CY

Journey from Zero can be viewed at the National Film Board site: https://www.nfb.ca/film/journey-from-zero/

Howard Overend’s personal account is in The Book Guy (Victoria, B.C: TouchWood Editions, 2001), pp. 202–207.

 

Two Fraser Valley films: The Fraser Valley Public Library (c. 1932) and The Library on Wheels (1945)

Fraser Valley Public Library, 16 mm., b & w., 12 minutes, c. 1932. British Columbia Public Library Commission. Photographed and produced by H. Norman Lidster.

The Library on Wheels, 16 mm., b & w, 14 minutes, 1945. National Film Board of Canada. Produced by Gudrun Parker and directed by Bill MacDonald.

The use of 16 mm. films for the promotion of Canadian library services began in earnest with Hugh Norman Lidster during the Great Depression. He was a practicing lawyer, a councillor, and a library board member in New Westminster, BC. In 1929, Lidster was appointed to the British Columbia Public Library Commission, a position to which he made many contributions until his retirement in 1966. In addition to his local and provincial contributions, he was active on the national level and received an Award of Merit from the Canadian Library Trustees’ Association in 1962. Lidster became an avid “home movie” enthusiast in the twenties and bought his first movie camera in 1930. Within a few years, he began to document local events and to promote the new Fraser Valley library regional demonstration funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1930-34. At some point, likely in 1932, Lidster decided to film the library’s new book van on its travels. Fortunately, his work has been preserved; consequently, we can view many of this region’s early community libraries, deposit stations, schools, its rural landscape and mountains, gravel roads, and even the old Agassiz-Rosedale ferry, which was replaced by a bridge in 1956.
 

The Norman Lidster Film of the Fraser Valley book van in 1932

Norman Lidster’s film is essentially a promotional film to showcase the Carnegie demonstration. It shows library service in the Fraser Valley and follows the book van on its routes from community to community. The film depicts various aspects of the library service and perhaps shows a brief closeup of the energetic director-librarian, Helen Gordon Stewart, at the outset. For today’s viewers, the smaller Canadian communities of the Fraser in the early 1930s appear by 21st century standards to be underdeveloped in terms of technology and economics. Even a decade and a half later, when the Library on Wheels was produced, this same impression prevails. Still, we must consider that Canada was less urbanized at this time: the valley’s principal towns were Abbotsford and Chilliwack, each with about 1,000 population or less. Forestry and farming were major sectors in a resource-based economy. Canada’s economy was growing on an international basis, and its gross domestic product ranked with countries such as Argentina, Poland, and Spain. Postwar economic growth in commercial industry, trade, services, and tourism would, of course, introduce many changes. Today the Fraser Valley Regional Library serves about 700,000 people.

Fraser Valley book van exiting ferry, ca 1932

 

Serving the rural population in BC was a key goal of the Provincial Public Library Commission Lidster served on. An important BC survey conducted in 1927 recommended that larger administrative library districts based on cooperation between municipalities and school districts would best serve rural communities that could not afford to fund local libraries for improving standards. Fortunately, the Carnegie Corporation of New York awarded a grant of $100,000 to operate a multi-year library project, which commenced in 1930. A notable feature of this project was its book van that traversed an area of approximately 1,000 square miles. The van made regular stops at small community association libraries, filling stations, grocery stores, and country corners. At each stop, it displayed books on its exterior covered shelves for people, young and old, to browse.

 
The experiment in regional library service proved to be quite successful. At its conclusion each community voted whether to continue the regional library with local taxes. Twenty municipalities agreed to do so, and in autumn 1934, a union library (FVUL) was formally established at a ceremony held in Chilliwack. The provincial government provided additional funding to encourage growth.

Eager readers at bookmobile in Fraser Valley, 1945

The National Film Board film The Library on Wheels, 1945

The FVUL was a successful model. Two more union regional libraries were formed in B.C., one on Vancouver Island and another in the Okanagan Valley, before Gudrun Parker, a Winnipeg born film producer who began her career with the National Film Board (NFB) during the Second World War, teamed up with the NFB director Bill MacDonald. He was a talented writer with a particular interest in conservation and outdoor sports, especially fishing. Together, they made an enjoyable reprise of the book van’s travels from its headquarters at Abbotsford in the Fraser region throughout four weeks in 1944. The NFB crew interacted with many residents during filming. Later, MacDonald recounted: “They took us into their confidence and they told us what they thought of the library and showed us the books they liked to read.” With sound, of course, the Library on Wheels is entertaining because it is also professionally edited. Gudrun Parker, who eventually would receive the Order of Canada for her body of work in 2005, credited one source of inspiration as Richard Crouch, the chief librarian of London, Ont. Crouch travelled across Canada on a Carnegie grant administered by the Canadian Library Council during the war. He was noted for his advocacy for the role of the “library in the community.” Two years later, in 1947, Parker and Crouch collaborated again, this time to produce the NFB short film, New Chapters, which documented the London library’s cultural and leisure activities in the Forest City. The later film received less promotion and was eclipsed in popularity by yet another bookmobile film of the same year, The Books Drive On, which highlighted libraries and communities in the Ontario county of Huron.

The Library on Wheels proved to be an influential asset for library promoters after WWII. Proponents of regional libraries in the west, especially in Saskatchewan, used the film to establish better rural services linked by newer bookmobiles rather than truck vans. Today, both films still resonate with the spirit of our open country and Canadians’ love of books.

Norman Lidster’s film can be viewed on YouTube here.

 

Watch the NFB’s 1945 Library on Wheels at this link.

 

My blog on the the Huron County bookmobile, Miss Huron, is at this link.