We would also like to take this opportunity to provide some facts about the Cranbury Public Library:

• At this time the library has only a verbal agreement with the school on sharing the facility. The school could legally ask us to leave at any time. Both parties are in the process of drawing up a written agreement.
• The library pays no rent to the school but we do pay for custodial services on Saturdays and Sundays when the heat is on in the building. In turn, the public library shelves all the books, keeps the library tables and shelves neat and maintains the library server and databases shared by both libraries.
• Each library hires its own staff. The school staff does not serve the public. The public staff does not take responsibility for the students.
• Each library has a separate collection of books: School – 9,200. Public – 25,350 of which 9,470 are juvenile books.
• Each library has a different mission: School supports the curriculum. Public serves the public wants and needs.
• A joint public/school library was never approved by referendum. Instead voters passed a referendum for a school addition in 1966. This addition included enough space to share the school library with the public library.
• The library is currently hampered by a lack of sufficient space.

o We have limited staff work space and no separate work/storage room.

o The Gambino room serves as the staff lunch room, program room, meeting room, Friends storage and book sale area, and staff storage. The room is used for so many purposes it does none of them well.

o We have no room for large programs in the library unless we take over the whole library.

o We have no separate children’s area.

o Aisles, especially those in the children’s picture book area, are hard to navigate with a stroller.

o We have to discard books to add new materials. Any book that has not circulated in 2 years is a candidate to be discarded.

If you are interested in information about libraries in general, please check out these links to some great resources on the web:

http://www.njla.org/presskit/libraryfacts.html (New Jersey Library Association – Library Facts)

http://www.urbanlibraries.org/files/making_cities_stronger.pdf (Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development by the Urban Libraries Council)

http://www.ala.org/ala/alalibrary/libraryfactsheet/alalibraryfactsheet6.cfm (American Library Association – Library Fact Sheet # 6)

As always, if you have any questions about the library, please feel free to call the library or stop in the director’s office. We would also encourage you to post any feedback and comments you may have either to this blog, or in our online suggestion box on our homepage: http://www.cranburypubliclibrary.org

We’d love to hear from you!