In the 1908 booklet Books for the People, the Midwestern librarian Henry E. Legler wrote: "Following in the wake of the great public library movement, which in less than two decades has dotted the cities of the United States with buildings that house millions of books for the people, came systems of traveling libraries."

Legler was speaking of what we call bookmobiles, which began to connect the rural cities of America during the early twentieth century.