Posted at: 09/17/2012 5:14 PM
Updated at: 09/17/2012 6:38 PM
By: Gordon Severson

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New Book Mobile in Rochester

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Reading is crucial for childhood development, but for some people getting to the Rochester library is no easy task.

Especially if you live on the outskirts of the county.
    
That's why workers decided to build a book mobile.

A bright blue sight outside the Rochester library. One that looks blue, but is actually green.

"It's kind of like a Prius book mobile," Kim Edson from Reader Services explains.

At $375,000 the brand new book mobile is nearly twice as expensive as the old one.

Probably 10 times more than the other two that came before that.

A handful of green features are making up the difference.

"When the book mobile is driving less than thirty miles per hour it uses exclusively battery power," Edson says.

When the weather is nice and sunny, the solar panels on the book mobile are able to generate enough juice to power the entire truck for the day.

"Solar panels alone save one to two gallons of diesel fuel an hour. At six days a week, 9 hours a day, that adds up over the course of a year," Edson says.

Every two weeks, the book mobile will stop at 77 locations in the county bringing books to children who can't make it to the library.

"They will know this. They will see it coming. It'll mean something to them,” Blair Harrington explains.

Harrington, a designer from Rochester, spent hundreds of hours designing the truck.

For him, it's simply an honor to be a part of something so good for the community.

"I'm proud of it. I just love the way it turned out," says Harrington.

After more than a year of hard work and planning, the mobile library was unveiled during a party Monday morning.

City leaders say it’s all part of Rochester’s ongoing commitment to literacy.

"To keep those resources available to them to the whole community, it is so important as they move forward to higher education," Mayor Ardell Brede says.

The mobile library made its first stop in Byron this Saturday.
    
It will start it's normal route through the county later this week.