a set of books from the collection of a permanent library, sent out for the temporary use of readers who are unable to utilize the library because of their work or location.

In the USSR mobile libraries are sent to enterprises, construction sites, and kolkhozes which do not have permanent libraries, as well as to field stations, agitpunkts, and so on. After the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR “On Measures for the Strengthening of Raion and Village Libraries” (1946), there was an extensive development of a new kind of mobile library, the bookmobile. In 1968, of the total number of popular libraries under the jurisdiction of the ministries of culture and the trade union organizations, approximately 70,000 libraries had more than 300,000 mobile libraries.