A bus driver walked up and peered at the little wooden box on a metal post that had just appeared Friday at the Northwest Transportation Center in Schaumburg.
The box had a small door with a window, and above that, a pink placard read “In memory of Dolly Parton.” Inside were children’s books, a dictionary of medical abbreviations and various other volumes.
As the signs on the buses parked nearby spelled out, it was “Dolly Day,” so named because of the date being Sept. 25, or 9/25, in a nod to Parton’s movie “9 to 5” and its eponymous hit song.
Pace amped up the celebration by unveiling the little libraries at transfer points across Chicagoland. It was a public-transit twist on communities across the country celebrating Parton, the country superstar who died in August.
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“I gave a call over to my marketing crew, and I said, ‘hey, it’s ‘9/25,’ after the Dolly Parton movie,” Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger said. “Let’s do something fun.”
The brainstorming began with the destination signs on the buses. Soon the Pace administration came up with the idea for the little libraries, in acknowledgement of Parton’s massive initiative to deliver books to children, Imagination Library.
That program mails millions of books a month to children around the world. Parton launched Imagination Library to honor her father, who couldn’t read or write, though she likely didn’t envision it would inspire a bus agency to install little libraries.
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They resemble the little box libraries sometimes found in front yards that allow passersby to take books and donate their own. Metzger contributed some herself Friday morning, adding three Minecraft books from her children. She’s also ordered children’s books about buses, including one titled “The Spooky Wheels on the Bus.”
Pace crews installed the libraries on Thursday and Friday, and the agency asked employees to donate the initial selection of books. They should become “self-sustaining” through regular use by riders, though the agency will continue to maintain them, Pace spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken said.
“If they want to take a book and read it on the bus and get their heads out of their phones, that would be really nice,” Metzger said. “But the other thing is that we believe that they can take it home to their kids who want to read a book, bring a book back, get another book, and it saves them some money buying books.”
Pace also installed the libraries at its stations in Harvey, Hoffman Estates and Plainfield. Owing to a shipping delay, the agency will install libraries at its Bolingbrook and Elgin locations later.
The few riders waiting at the Schaumburg station around noon seemed not to notice the library. But the bus driver who did, Anthony Figueroa, said it reminded him of a little box library in his neighborhood from which he’d gotten cookbooks. He plans to contribute books to the Pace one.
Then fellow driver Jim Weber walked up. He’s driven for Pace and its predecessor agencies for 51 years.
“How long has this been here?” he asked.
He touched the library and it swayed.
“Gee, how long is it gonna be here?”
The little libraries will eventually be reinforced, according to Skogsbakken.