Mary Titcomb

Mary Titcomb was the first librarian at Washington County Free Library and the person who originated the idea of a county-wide delivery of books.

Mary Lemist Titcomb, 1857-1932, was born in New Hampshire, worked in the Concord, Massachusetts, Public Library, later became librarian of the public library in Rutland, Vermont and secretary of the first Vermont Library Commission.

She arrived in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1901 to organize the county's library. The library itself had been chartered in 1898, and the main library in Hagerstown opened its doors on August 27, 1901. Miss Titcomb was concerned from the start that the library was not reaching all of the people it could, that to be a county library, as the name implied, it should reach everyone in the county. Deposit collections were set up in stores, homes, postoffice and Sunday schools throughout the county, beginning in November of 1901.

The bookmobile, which first started its travels in 1905, served to further extend the role of the library outside the county seat. She said:

No better method has ever been devised for reaching the dweller in the country. The book goes to the man, not waiting for the man to come to the book.