New Milford Library: New Offerings for the New Year

New Milford Library Director, Terrie McColl, smiles when she talks about purchasing the library's new collection of 39 video games with the $500 donation from the "Friends of the New Milford Library."

"I had a 30%-off coupon for Kohl's so I bought 35 video games for the library," she said. "That purchase awarded me additional money in 'Kohl Bucks' so I went back a few days later and bought four more games." Tough times lead to creative thinking.

Everybody is feeling the pinch in this stark economy, especially area libraries where municipal funding continues to dwindle. Take, for example, Northvale's public library that recently closed its doors due to lack of funding. In order to keep the library in operation, there was a referendum asking Northvale voters to approve an additional $500,000, for the library and for surplus, to the 2011 budget. (Because this additional funding exceeds the state's 2% cap, a referendum was required.) Northvale is one of the few "Library Associations" in Bergen County. A Library Association is a non-profit entity that receives municipal funding. The voters defeated the referendum and the library was subsequently closed. 

McColl is not only the Director of the New Milford Library, but she is also the President of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System (BCCLS). BCCLS consists of 74 public libraries in New Jersey's Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Passaic Counties and, according to McColl, is "The best example of shared services." Through the BCCLS system, library patrons can search the computer database for books, movies and music and order them from the library within the BCCLS system that has it. The items are then delivered to their home library.

"This sharing of resources represents a significant savings for all participating libraries," McColl said. "If each library had to purchase all of the books and materials that its patrons requested, it would cost much more than the cost of membership in BCCLS." 

McColl has also created a Technology Committee within BCCLS that is working on apps. "Our goal is to make BCCLS more compatible with smart phones, iPads, the cloud, all the new technology."

As President of BCCLS, McColl embarked on during Library Week last year. What most impressed her during this tour was the unique flavor of each library. "Each town's library not only reflected their community, but answered the individual needs of their community." The more urban libraries, such as North Bergen, offered summer programming aimed at retaining children's math and language arts skills while more suburban libraries, such as Nutley, had been crafting origami birds that they hung in their atrium making it look like a museum exhibit.

This year, McColl is planning on doing her tour again during Library Week, but with the departure of Northvale it will be "74 Libraries in 4 Days." And she intends to recruit someone to drive her because she was tweeting her adventures both before her arrival and after her departure from each library. "It would save on time if someone drove while I tweeted."

This past December the New Milford Library hosted a "Holiday Shopping Boutique" that consisted of over 30 crafters and vendors. The Holiday Boutique included custom-made jewelry, hand-made soaps, local businesses such as Inner Bliss and , local crafters, and local independent sales representatives from Avon and Pampered Chef. 

"It was such an unexpected success that we're thinking about planning a Spring Boutique that we can hold outdoors to accommodate more vendors," McColl said. 

Also planned for this year is the continuation of story time with the venerable children's librarian, Miss Mary, who has read to a generation of New Milford's youth. There's "Tot Time" for newborn through two-years old, and afternoon story time for preschool-aged children. 

There will also be the summer series of Friday family movies and evening story hour.

The library also offers downloadable eBooks that can now be downloaded to Kindle. All you need is a valid library card. eBooks can be accessed through the BCCLS catalogue system or through BeAT (Bergen eAudio Team), a system that also offers downloadable audiobooks.  

McColl stresses that in addition to all of the services that the library offers New Milford residents, perhaps the most important service is being a refuge to residents during extreme weather when there is no power. During Irene and Snow-tober McColl said that the library opened its doors to all residents so that they could recharge their phones, computers and other electronic equipment. At least, until they lost power as well. 

McColl also said that representatives from AARP will once again be at the library and available to help senior residents e-file their taxes. 

Getting back to all those Kohl video games, McColl wants everyone to know that there is a variety to choose from: Wii, Xbox, Nintendo DS and Playstation.

"These games can be checked out for two weeks and renewed for another two allowing for a full month of play," she said. Free of charge. Words that every parent likes to hear.