Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311040401
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Charles Stebbins
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roanoke's mobile unit provides all library services to Craig County with visits to New Castle once a week, a service it has been providing the county since 1974.
The city's mobile unit - which has been running since 1972 - also visits retirement centers and nursing homes throughout the Roanoke Valley each Monday.
Library users in Craig County appear satisfied with services provided by the bookmobile, which stops on Middle Street in New Castle every Wednesday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Richard Flora, county administrator, said he has heard no complaints about library services or any requests for additional services.
Botetourt County has permanent library facilities in Fincastle, Blue Ridge and Buchanan. Its bookmobile provides service to other areas of the county with mobile visits on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
In Roanoke, Katherine Cales, a library assistant and driver of the bookmobile, said 80 to 100 books are checked out in Craig County each month.
Fiction and children's books are most requested, she said.
Craig County has budgeted $1,500 in each of the last several fiscal years for library services.
Craig County once proposed building a permanent library, but it has never become a reality.
In 1989, a Florida man who had connections with the county told the Board of Supervisors he would put up some money as a start toward a fund to build a library. But nothing was ever done, and Flora said he does not know the status of the proposal.
Flora said there is no move that he knows of to build a permanent library.
by CNB