Mary Lemist Titcomb (1852-1932) was one of the most innovative librarians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She grew up wanting to do something special. The problem was that people were always telling her that she couldn't. But Mary never gave up, and did find something special—to be a librarian.

As head librarian of the Washington County Free Library in Maryland, Titcomb was concerned that the library did not serve all the people it could. She was determined that everyone would have access to a library—not just the rich and those who lived in town. And so she set out to find a way to take the library to the county's 25,000 rural residents. Thus the bookmobile was born!

From the dust jacket