Biblioteca Ambulante: Library Outreach Salvadoran Style

Recently, my wife and I went to San Salvador, El Salvador. I didn’t intend to go looking for libraries, but one found me anyway.  The first thing we encountered upon arriving at the public square in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral was the Biblioteca Muncipal Ambulante, or Mobile Municipal Library.
 
 
This was a simple tent under which several men sat at folding tables engrossed in their reading. Nearby was a similar tent for children and half a dozen kids were busy coloring and reading. I approached the woman attending to the operation and introduced myself as a librarian from California. Before she could say much, a very energetic fellow flew over and began to tell us the story of how this library came to exist. The library is a project of the mayor’s office and was started because city staff had noted that men sat around all day in the park doing nothing but talking and watching the pigeons. Why not try to improve their minds while they have nothing else to do? Hence the Biblioteca Ambulante was born. Naturally, we were fascinated. He showed us the book stock: while it was not the clean new hard and soft-cover volumes with pretty covers and crisp mylar jackets that we have in our libraries (the most costly supply present was the sign, featuring the mayor’s name and demonstrating that good signage is key), there was a nice selection, including fiction, history, technical books, poetry, and magazines. Our new librarian friend even offered us to take a book as a souvenir of our visit, but we declined, thinking that the library customers needed the materials more than we did.
 
It is often said that the public library is a uniquely American (as in U.S.)  institution. That may be true and it may also be true that in some countries, the public does not enjoy the same level of library service that we do in Riverside County and across the country. But what those folks were doing with their mobile library service was demonstrating outreach services that responded to an acute need for information and reading material that rivals or surpasses our outreach efforts. With obviously very little funding to work with, they took the library to the people and found a receptive and appreciative audience.  Their passion and dedication was a powerful example to me of what libraries can and should be in our communities. And how we might sometimes take our embarrassment of riches for granted.