MAPLETON — The Utah County bookmobile may be running on borrowed time.

The bookmobile route is shrinking as cities continue to gobble up unincorporated land, bookmobile technician Ellen Starr said. County leaders may replace it with a countywide library card that allows residents in unincorporated areas to use nearby city libraries.

The bookmobile route shrank Jan. 1 when county commissioners eliminated Lakeshore, where only 12 families were using it; Santaquin, which now has its own library; Eagle Mountain and a stop at the intersection of U-73 and Redwood Road near Saratoga Springs. The present contract ends Dec. 31, Starr said. Utah County Commissioner Steve White said, however, that the service may be needed for three to four more years.

As cities continue to annex county land, "there won't be any significant area left for the bookmobile to serve," he said.

The library was receiving about $13,000 a year in state library board subsidies to run the bookmobile, but those funds dried up, White said. The board turned down the county's request of $8,000 for the current year.

Demand was too small, Commissioner Gary Herbert said, who characterizes the book-carrying truck as a dinosaur.

A better idea may be to give the cities county library funds — about $119,000 a year — in exchange for letting the nearly 12,000 residents who live outside city boundaries use local libraries, he said. They would need a special library card.

No decision has been made, and discussions are continuing. White said he will raise the issue at Thursday's Mountainland Association of Governments meeting.

The rolling library still makes 19 stops in Utah County communities from Alpine on the north to Birdseye on the south every two weeks. Alpine, Elk Ridge and Mapleton, which lack libraries, are the only Utah County cities that contract for bookmobile services.

The bookmobile is based out of a library in Mapleton but does not belong to a specific city library.

"I think it would be a real shame if they closed it down," said Jean Clark, a self-described avid reader.

She has been using bookmobiles since 1957 when she lived near Capital Reef in Wayne County. She now lives in Mapleton.

"I used to wait and anticipate that thing coming," she said. "A lot of people in outlying areas need that bookmobile. It upsets me greatly."

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