Arizona’s Heart & Sol: ‘Bookbike’ spreads literacy across southern Arizona

TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) -Every week, KOLD News 13 partners with Casino Del Sol to highlight a person or organization that is going above and beyond in the community.

In this week’s, the winner is keeping literacy alive, through the ‘bookbike.’

One Tucson librarian has put the books on wheels to spread the love of reading across the community.

It’s a bike....carrying books! Call it the bookbike.

Pima county librarian Karen Greene started the program, seeing the need for more reading across the county. Now she’s on the move, bringing books to underserved communities.

“We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary this year. We have 3 of them that go out within a 5 mile radius of the main library, the South Tucson library, and the Columbus library,” says Greene.

Like everything else, the pandemic also took its toll on the book bike.

“It really just sat, it was very sad. And we just started going out again in February so we really just got rolling again.”

Around 98,000 books have been given out thanks to the Bookbike.

And Greene’s hard work has not gone unnoticed. It’s work that takes lots of love.

In partnership with Casino Del Sol, KOLD presented Greene with this week’s heart and sol award, and a $300 gift card.

Greene hopes to continue to grow the Bookbike program, and says volunteers are always welcomed.

“My tag line is world domination by book bike, so by keeping the word out about the book bike, people hear about it and other library systems hear about it and the more book bikes that we can have out there, the better!”

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