Vol. 10(3), pp. 35-40, March 2018 DOI: 10.5897/IJLIS2017.0816 Article Number: A8815BA56368 ISSN 2141-2537 Copyright © 2018 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/IJLIS International Journal of Library and Information Science Review Mobile Libraries: Defining the phenomenon Georgios Bikos 1* and Panagiota Papadimitriou 2 1 Department of Library Science and Information Systems, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Greece. 2 15th Junior High School of Peristeri, Athens, Greece. Received 18 December, 2017; Accepted 16 February, 2018 This article presents a brief historical review of the appearance of mobile libraries and then continues to define the phenomenon on the basis of two of its distinct features: library services and mobility, which both concern institutional Mobile Libraries and non-institutional mobile libraries. In addition, special reference is made to the significant presence of non-institutional mobile libraries in the world of books. The text closes with a short reference to the social contribution of mobile (and mobile) libraries (education and lifelong learning, entertainment, communication - connection - meeting) to everyone and, more particularly, to people with special physical and/or social needs and the necessity to support the continuation of their operation. Key words: Mobile libraries, non-institutional mobile libraries, library services, library mobility, social contribution of mobile libraries. INTRODUCTION Mobile libraries: A brief historical review In the 1800s, the travelling libraries were the most popular method for books to reach the people who, for various reasons, did not have access to libraries. To be more specific, these were boxes filled with a collection of 25 to 50 books that were delivered to predetermined deposit stations by hand-pushed trolleys or horse-drawn carriages (Walter, 1920). The travelling libraries –found until the middle of the 20th century– gradually spiralled into decline. At the same time, the mobile libraries appeared around the world in various forms. The shift from using vehicles to deliver boxes with books, to using vehicles for book storage and circulation, that is, to mobile libraries, is an important milestone in the history of books and libraries. We do not know the exact date when various transport means began to be used as mobile libraries. Relevant references to horse-drawn carriages that carried small collections of books for borrowing purposes are found in the late 1850s in the United Kingdom (Hedrick, 2011). In the USA, the role of Mary Titcomb, an active librarian in Washington County Free Library, Maryland, was truly remarkable; in her effort to expand the services of the library to the rural country, she introduced the deposit system, onthe basis of which reading material was packaged in boxes and delivered by a horse-drawn carriage to houses, stores, post offices, etc, scattered throughout the county. When Titcomb realised that these stations were not accessible to people who were limited by time or transportation restrictions, she designed the Book Wagon, a specially arranged carriage with shelves on the outer surfaces. The black wagon, which was staffed with a librarian and a coachman since Conventional library and information services (LIS) such as Online Public 1905 visited institutions and houses. Its *Corresponding author. E-mail: g_bicos@hotmail.com. Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License