These came to be called packhorse libraries, rough-rider cousins of the recently invented bookmobile.

As library staff report higher usage rates, bookmobile services are often sacrificed to retain essential library functions.

In towns not served by brick-and-mortar libraries, a visit from the local bookmobile was once an exciting and frequent event.

That's what we're becoming, said a library director in Volusia County, Florida who had to take a bookmobile off the road.

She thought about it, then went to the section of the bookmobile marked "Adult Fiction" and pulled out a slim hardcover volume.

Now, from Florida to Massachusetts, bookmobiles have gone the way of the ice man and the telegram.

Brewster Kahle's Internet Bookmobile can convert a digital book into a four-color, full-bleed, perfect-bound, laminated-cover, printed-spine paper book in ten minutes, for about a dollar.