Kelly Passek a middle school librarian in Montgomery County, Virginia is sending out summer reading via drones. After using the quadcopters from Wing to get some home essentials, she realized that she could use the service to literally drop some knowledge on local students.
After seeing how quickly her household goods and meals were delivered, she petitioned the company to take on library books, too. The company said yes, and the first books fly out this week.
“I think kids are going to be just thrilled to learn that they are going to be the first in the world to receive a library book by drone,” said Passek, who works for Montgomery County Public Schools.
Drone delivery has been an anticipated promise from tech companies since Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos showed off a surprise prototype during a “60 Minutes” interview in 2013. Other companies jumped on the bandwagon shortly after, but nearly seven years later, the service is only available in limited tests in a few areas of the world, bogged down by regulatory hurdles.
Students aren’t able to visit school libraries during the summer months anyway, but the pandemic has made it especially hard for many families to keep getting free reading material until public libraries reopen. Wing’s library book delivery service is available to any of the roughly 600 students in the district who live in the delivery area. They won’t have to return the books until school starts up again in the fall, Passek said..
getting books to students is a laudable and novel use of the technology, especially during a global pandemic. As Thomas Pynchon once wrote, “A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.”
