Oh, the places she’ll go

The Lawrence Public Library’s new truck, a Ford step van customized by architecture professor Nils Gore and his third-year students, will allow the library to expand its outreach services to neighborhoods all across Lawrence.

And while “bookmobile” might be the term that leaps to mind when viewing the big red-and-white truck emblazoned with the library’s distinctive graphics, that’s only part of the story, according to Brad Allen, the library’s executive director.

“As you see it deployed right now, it clearly looks like our vision of a bookmobile,” Allen, c’97, said during the library’s Aug. 20 Last Bash party, where Dottie—the name selected for the vehicle from dozens submitted by library patrons—attracted throngs of young readers drawn to the exterior shelving crammed with books at just the right height for kids to browse.

“But in a real maximalist way we talked about trying to make it like a Swiss Army knife,” Allen said. “What all kinds of things could it do? Could it be a thing that checks out books? Could you roll out a carpet and do story time? That was the premise we started with.”

From there, Gore’s students were asked to design a mobile tool with the flexibility to deliver as many of those functions as possible.

“Brad didn’t want just a bookmobile, so the idea is not to have space for people to sit inside, but to store as much as possible and provide counter space so they can hand out things like books, water or food,” says Hannah Froehle, one of 18 students who made early prototypes of the vehicle. The class concentrated on maximizing interior storage by designing cabinets to create a space that is “super clean and organized.”

Design started in January 2021, as students were dealing with pandemic disruptions.
“It was in the heat of COVID, and COVID hit everybody really hard,” Froehle says. “Having that truck to work on, something that benefits the community, a public works project, really kept my head above water. I’m definitely very grateful for that experience.”