A Trained but Novel Way to Keep Track of an
Underground Library Collection While Making
It a Stationary Lending Collection


Transit lending library a novel concept
By Paul Burgarino
East County Times
Article Launched: 05/29/2008 03:05:47 PM PDT
Contra Costa Times
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With a couple pushes of a computer touch screen Thursday morning, Melody Fountila found a way to make her daily train trip to San Francisco more enjoyable.

Fountila borrowed the novel "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper from the Library-A-Go-Go book-lending machine at the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART station.

The beginning of the line for East County BART commuters is the first transit station in the nation to offer such a service. State and county library officials, along with BART and civic leaders, gathered Thursday morning to unveil the new European-inspired service and see it in action.

"I was just walking by and was curious about what was going on," Fountila, of Antioch, said. "I was handed a bookmark, and figured I should get a book now." Contra Costa County library staff were at the station signing people up for library cards and passing out information about the new service.

Fountila often "reads something important or sleeps" on the hour-long trip, she said.

As the first BART commuter to use the service, she was watched carefully by Chris Saylor of Brentwood and his 17-year-old daughter, Ashley. The two were headed to San Francisco to visit the campus of her future school, The Art Institute of California.

"I think it's a really great idea; it's fantastic," Chris Saylor said, noting that books available from the machine were newer paperbacks.