By By EDWIN MODLIN II
Staff Writer
Budget cutbacks are forcing the Beaufort-Hyde-Martin Regional Library to discontinue running its Bookmobile — a feature of the library system for more than 70 years.
Maryjane Carbo, director of BHM Regional Library, said in a written statement that because of the current financial environment, significant cuts had to be made.
“Because of stresses on their own budgets, our three counties are unable to grant us the additional funding we requested to continue running the Bookmobile,” Carbo wrote in a letter to the editor that appears in the Washington Daily News today. “Besides rural homes and neighborhoods, the Bookmobile visited day care centers, nursing homes, senior centers and local businesses.”
During August, Carbo said, the Bookmobile drivers will be retrieving all the books checked out by library patrons in the three-county area served by the library.
“We didn’t just help and deliver to homes in the communities, but also to nursing homes, day care centers and small towns that don’t have a library branch,” Carbo said Tuesday.
During its years of service, the Bookmobile traveled 621,600 miles, visited 118,510 people and circulated 1,975,000 books.
Carbo saluted the Bookmobile staff — Lou Ellen Adams, Mary Ayers, Lois Brooks, Sophia Jarvis, Judi Siegrist and Janice Webb — for their years of dedicated and attentive service.
“We especially thank our many Bookmobile users for their appreciation of the services offered by the BHM Regional Library,” Carbo said Tuesday.
She assured all Bookmobile users the library will do its utmost to continue offering books and other materials to rural residents. She noted that BHM Regional Library cards may be used at any of the eight branch libraries in the BHM system — Aurora, Bath, Belhaven, Mattamuskeet, Ocracoke, Robersonville, Washington and Williamston.
Carbo said a final meeting of Bookmobile staffer will be held Aug. 16 at the library’s headquarters, located in the old courthouse at the intersection of Second and Market streets in Washington.