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American Libraries: Intemet Librarian, 9/98 Page 3 of 3 Other creative librarians have put Interact access on bookmobiles for circulation access. As far back.as June 1995, the Troy-Miami County (Ohio) Public Library bookmobile began using a cellular Net connection to access circulation info. Just this May, San Francisco Public Library wired two bookmobiles to the Internet using Ricochet, a wireless access service offered by Metricom. There is one Interact workstation per bookmobile, which allows bookmobile staff to "provide so much more on-the-spot information to our patrons than in the past, when we either had the book or didn't, and took reserve requests that had to be filled in the office," says Karen Strauss of SFPL's Library on Wheels office. The Topeka and Shawnee County (Kans.) Public Library has been offering Internet access on two of its three bookmobiles since July 1997. As with SFPL, these are staff workstations, but the added value of online reference services has been "successful to date," says Outreach Services Manager Robert Banks. Among its other advantages, the Internet lightens the vehicle's load, since so many question-answering tools are now online. Finally, Bruce Monley of the Public Libraries Division of the State l.ibraries o1' Queensland wrote to politely point out that libraries down under were way ahead of us. Not only do a number of bookmobiles in Australia offer Internet access, but a bookmobile conference held in March was called "Bookmobiles to Cybermobiles." Conference proceedings are online, and the Web site devoted to bookmobiles is well worth browsing if you're thinking of going this route. Talk about it Finally, just in case you thought there weren't enough library discussion lists already, there is indeed one for bookmobiles, and members discuss Internet access as well. Send a message to listserv';ifiistserv.c!arion.edu and in the body of the message type "subscribe BKMOB-L Yourfirstname Yourlastname." © Copyright 1998 American Library Association Back to the top httn://www.ala.or~/alonline/neflih/ilOOa html '~/~ ~