LIBRARIES on wheels, a common sight in Singapore during the 1960s, are making a mini-comeback.

The Government on Thursday launched Molly the mobile library - actually a converted SBS bus - in a bid to reach readers who seldom visit brick-and-mortar book centres.

On trial till May next year, the mobile library will visit neighbourhood primary schools, orphanages, children's homes and special education schools, said the National Library Board.

The interior of the bus, which holds 3,000 books, was remodelled to resemble a real library. It features specially designed bookshelves, a borrowing station and e-kiosks where users can check their book-loan records and pay fines using ez-link cards.

Its collection of books, which comes from a pool of 23,000 titles, is restocked daily.

Books on the bus will be selected to meet the needs of the readers at its destination. The bus will make visits once every three weeks to coincide with the loan period of books.

Mobile services were started in 1960 to relieve the pressure on Singapore's limited library system. They were discontinued in the early 1990s when more public libraries were built in the heartland.

Speaking at the launch event at Pathlight School, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan said that Molly was 'a kind of sampler' to entice people to visit the main library.

'The challenge today is not the physical availability of libraries, but rather, reaching out and making sure that people who can benefit from access to books know about it and are given the access to it,' said Dr Balakrishnan.