Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2014, Síða 28

28
Although Höfðinginn, or “The Chief” as
it is officially known, is a fully 21st cen-
tury mobile library tricked out with WiFi
and circulating CDs and DVDs along
with its books and magazines, there
is something immediately and irrevo-
cably nostalgic about the very idea of
a bookmobile. Not unlike an ice cream
truck, it inspires a sort of childlike joy in
me. And so, having never actually been
in a bookmobile in my home country, I
decided to hitch a ride and get to know
The Chief of Reykjavík.
The Library Comes To You
On the bright winter day of my ride-
along, I headed to the Kringlan branch
library, which manages and maintains
the bookmobile. It was just after lunch-
time and as there was still a little time
before The Chief was scheduled to
depart, I was invited to share in coffee
and biscuits. The librarians—all women
save Guttormur, a library technician
and my chaperone for the day—politely
inquired about my time in Iceland and
my studies (I garnered some approving
hums when I mentioned my own library
degree), before giving me a basic run-
down of the day’s route, which would
travel through a couple of the city’s
further-flung neighbourhoods.
Counting two reciprocal locations
in the nearby towns of Mosfellsbær and
Seltjanarnes, the Reykjavík City Library
is comprised of eight branches situated
around the greater capital area. With
much of the city’s population residing
in sprawling suburbs, however, library
patrons may live quite a distance from
the nearest branch. And so, Höfðinginn
picks up the slack, making weekly
rounds to around 40 additional loca-
tions.
The goal is to ensure that there is
never more than one kilometre be-
tween a patron’s home and a library,
be it a ‘brick-and-mortar’ branch, or
a bookmobile stop. “The bookmobile
completes the library ‘net’ in Reykjavík,”
Dóra Thoroddsen, the head librarian at
the Kringlan branch, later explained. “If
you can’t come to the library, the library
comes to you.”
Beyond simply ensuring that resi-
dents don’t have to travel very far to
get to a library branch, the bookmo-
bile is also intended to be a resource
for underserved populations, such as
the elderly, residents of new suburban
housing developments, schools that
don’t have their own libraries, and care
homes for disabled people. Every year,
its route is reconsidered and new stops
are added, as needed. “The plan is in
constant renewal,” Dóra explained.
Back at the library lunch table,
our conversation comfortably lulled.
“Jájá,” someone said, smacking her
knees lightly. “You will go very far out
today.” And then, as if by consensus,
everyone stood and cleared away their
lunch packets and my now-empty cup
of coffee. Guttormur glanced at his
watch and I put on my coat, but not be-
fore several librarians made sure I was
aware that there were no ‘facilities’ on
the bus. “It is recommended that you
use the toilet,” one said gently, shrug-
ging. “Because we are mothers.”
A Storied History
The Chief was parked outside the
branch, driverless, but waiting with an
air of expectancy. Guttormur wasn’t
fussed. “We’re usually a little late,” he
joked, and then began to fill me in on
the several lives that the bookmobile
has lead since its birth in 1969.
The Chief standing before us was
actually The Chief II, or The Chief, Jr.,
if you prefer, having taken over the
title and duties from its predecessor in
2000. The first Chief was actually a de-
commissioned and remodelled city bus,
and was the first of its kind in Iceland.
(For the record, the current Reykjavík
bookmobile is still the only one in the
country—a shame, perhaps, given how
handy one of these would be for resi-
dents living in more isolated villages in
the countryside.)
In its first 10 years, The Chief circu-
lated an astounding 2,400,000 items,
sometimes close to a thousand in one
day. In fact, over the course of one par-
ticularly busy route during those golden
years, the bookmobile loaned out 1,800
items, amounting to over half the bus’s
stock. No wonder then, that up until the
early ‘70s, there were always three li-
brarians on board to help patrons.
Not surprisingly, the circulation de-
mand has declined over the years, and,
as Guttormur explained, this is basically
the fault of the VHS tape. When The
Chief started making its rounds, people
living in the countryside—as many of
the outlying Reykjavík suburbs could
have reasonably been termed, even into
the late ‘70s and early ‘80s—had pretty
limited options of what to do with their
leisure time. So the bookmobile acted
as many people’s primary source of en-
tertainment. Then, in the ‘80s, people
started buying VCRs and progressively,
spent more time watching movies in the
evenings than reading.
Nevertheless, the bookmobile still
does a pretty brisk business today: in
2012, a total of 16,396 items were circu-
lated from the bus; 13,228 were loaned
in 2013. Circulations are particularly
high in the outlying districts of Laugar-
nes, Grafarvogur, and Kjalarnes, the
latter of which is situated at the base
of Mount Esja about 18 kilometres out-
side of downtown Reykjavík, and, with
under 900 inhabitants, is the city’s least
populous district.
The Captain Of The Chief
Guttormur had just finished filling me
in on the bookmobile’s background
when its captain appeared: the jolly
Bjarni Björnsson who has been driv-
ing the bookmobile since it started
running 44 years ago. (He splits shifts,
actually, with his younger brother Bragi,
who himself has driven the bookmobile
for 39 years.) Bjarni shook my hand,
opened the bus doors, and grandly
gestured me inside.
With only two seatbelts up front, I
was directed to a bench seat in the very
rear of the bus, sandwiched between
two tightly packed shelves of children’s
picture books and YA novels. There
was quite a mix of titles, in both Ice-
landic and English. From my vantage, I
recognised Pippi Longstocking, Harry
Potter, Moomins, and Nancy Drew in
the kids section, as well as cookbooks,
travel guides to Mediterranean lo-
cales, fashion magazines, and about 25
non-consecutive volumes of the ever-
popular Norwegian medieval adven-
ture romance series ‘Ísfólkið’ (“The Ice
People”). As the bus pulled out of the
parking lot, the radio started playing
quietly from the corner speaker above
me, a mix of Rat Pack standards.
Our first 45-minute stop was just
out front of a community centre in the
suburb of Breiðholt. Thick sheets of ice
had built up over the course of three or
four consecutive thaws and (re)freezes,
forcing Bjarni to execute what amount-
ed to a twelve point turn; he didn’t want
anyone approaching the bus to slip and
slide across the ice to enter.
All that remained was to wait. Bjarni
stepped outside to take the air while
Guttormur shelved some new material
(each day the collection is replenished
with new material from the library, and
any holds that patrons have requested
to pick up on-board). Guttormur en-
joyed working on the bookmobile, he
said, because you really get to know
the regular patrons. He spoke of one
elderly woman in particular who had
“very advanced tastes.” Every week,
she arrived with a long list of book titles
in her diary—“lots of translated fic-
tion or South American authors”—and
would set both him and Bjarni to work
pulling things off the shelves or writing
down requests for the following week.
He was filling in for someone today,
he admitted, so he wouldn’t know as
much about the stops or the people as
he would otherwise. But he assured me
that Bjarni would know the answer to
absolutely anything I wanted to know.
I thought he meant just about the bus it-
self, and possibly the bookmobile route,
but as it turned out, Bjarni’s expertise
was in no way limited to library mat-
ters. I asked him a few dull questions
in English, which Guttormur dutifully
translated—mostly just a little chitchat
about the black and white photos of the
bus, which were hanging on the wall.
But the second I made a rather bash-
ful attempt to address him in Icelandic,
Bjarni became totally and immediately
animated, and very generous with my
stilted speaking skills. Determining that
I could understand more than I could
say, he launched into a crash course
in the history of the Icelandic language
and a quick run-down of Icelandic emi-
gration to Canada. “There are Iceland-
ers everywhere,” he ended with satis-
faction, before returning to the driver’s
seat.
Norðlingaholt: The Lakeside
Neighbourhood
No one showed up at the first stop, so
we buckled back in and headed to the
next place on our itinerary, the Norðlin-
gaholt neighbourhood in the Árbær
district. The neighbourhood is organ-
ised into concentric circles, with the
square town homes and stocky, boxy
apartment buildings on the outside and
a school and day-care centre on the in-
nermost ring. Rauðavatn (“Red Lake”),
stands just beyond this cluster, which
residents enjoy biking and jogging
around, or even canoeing or ice skating
across, depending on the season.
Just moments after the bus door
opened, a few clusters of preteen girls
clambered up the stairs and headed
straight for a series of chapter books.
There was a heated discussion as to
whether they could be read out of or-
der, as one of the first titles was miss-
ing.
While they applied to Guttormur to
settle the matter, another young girl
came in and made herself comfort-
able on the bench with a stack of nov-
els. She browsed through each before
making her way up to the counter and
asking Guttormur, who still had his
hands full with the teen book club, for
a specific title. So Bjarni stepped in,
sorting through a stack of books in the
front to find the one she was looking
for, and even making some recommen-
dations of other books on the shelves.
The girl left, happily loaded down with
a substantial pile.
Úlfarsárdalur: Ghost Town On
The Upswing
Our last stop of the afternoon—after
which the bus would head back to the
library for a coffee break before go-
ing back out on evening rounds—was
in the Úlfarsárdalur suburb. This time,
kids were actually running to the bus as
it pulled into the parking lot—boys and
girls both standing, literally breathless,
outside of the bookmobile doors. (Be
still, my librarian heart.) They entered in
a rush, while Bjarni took me outside to
point out things around the neighbour-
hood.
Úlfarsárdalur, I learned, is consid-
ered something of a ghost town today.
Once home to three military barracks
which housed over a thousand people
during WWII, it was hoped, in the pre-
crash years, that it would become a
neighbourhood in touch with nature
and eventually home to as many as
18,000 active, outdoorsy types. The
crash hit Úlfarsárdalur hard, however,
leaving a good many of the homes half
built or uninhabited.
Today, after the city pledged to help
build the suburb up with facilities such
as a swimming pool and an expanded
elementary school, 662 people live
there, with an expected eventual popu-
lation of 3,500. Without a nearby library,
it seems that many locals are regulars
on the bookmobile. A handful of parents
and adults browsed and chatted while
the wave of children gleefully pulled
books off the shelves, flipping through
them, and discarding them quickly. With
Guttormur busy up front, Bjarni stood
behind patiently, re-shelving in their
wake.
He laughed, clearly delighted. “It’s
always this crowded at this stop.”
Words by
Larissa Kyzer
I clearly remember the day, just over a year ago, when I first saw the Reykjavík book-
mobile (bókabíll) parked on a side street in my secluded seaside neighbourhood. So
incongruous was this enormous bright blue city bus covered with whimsical illustrations
of grinning children and flying books that I don’t think I’d have been any more surprised if
I’d have turned the corner and found the Tardis standing there. Its windows were fogged
but cheerfully lit, and when I cautiously knocked on the door, it opened slowly, emitting
a pneumatic hiss reminiscent of a made-for-TV space ship.
Literature
??
The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 5 — 2014
The Chief Of Reykjavík
A Ride-along on the City Bookmobile
Not surprisingly, the
circulation demand has
declined over the years,
and, as Guttormur ex-
plained, this is basically
the fault of the VHS tape.”
Nanna Dís
Photo provided by Borgarbókasafnið