Library Director: Cuts Would Kick System Back to 'Stone Age'

Gov. Chris Christie's proposal won't just affect town and school budgets. The Cranford Public Library is feeling the heat with Wednesday's proposed elimination of its reference database and interlibrary loan funding, as well as a 50 percent cut to state aid.

CPL is also facing a bill that looks to get rid of the annual minimum requirement for municipal funding. This would make the library's share of municipal funds completely up to the Cranford Township Committee.

Submitted to the New Jersey Assembly on Tuesday, the bill A255 calls for the elimination of the 1/3 mil requirement. This requirement establishes a certain annual minimum funding level for a town's public library. Towns can fund above the minimum, which is not uncommon, but they cannot fund below it. The level is determined by looking at the value of all the real estate in a township and then allocating a certain percentage of that value to the local public library. 

"The actual amount deemed necessary by the municipal governing body could, in fact, prove woefully inadequate for running a first-class town library, so the elimination of the 1/3 protection is an extremely scary prospect," said Cranford Public Library Director John Malar. "Similar bills were introduced at least twice within the last couple of years, but they never got anywhere."

Christie's budget proposal calls for the elimination of all (that's $1.4 million) of the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative, a program administered by the State Library that makes valuable commercial reference databases, like ReferenceUSA, Business Source Premiere and Academic Search Premiere, available to academic and local libraries throughout the state and to the New Jersey business community.

"Most libraries cannot afford to pay for these databases on their own, so this would be a huge blow to public libraries and their patrons," said Malar.

The State Library would also lose all (that's almost $4.3 million) in network aid. If so, JerseyCat, the statewide online library catalog would likely cease to exist, putting an end to a statewide interlibrary loan system.

Cranford is currently part of a network called Infolink that consists of Union, Middlesex, Hudson and Essex counties. This cooperative would disband, eliminating patron loans from the other library branches and discounted education opportunities for employees at member libraries.

"It would, in effect, place us back in the Stone Age," said Malar. "Instead of searching hundreds of libraries at once for an item a patron wants, we would be forced to search library catalogs one by one. It would also eliminate the statewide service that we rely on to deliver and receive interlibrary loan items."

Cranford patrons would see a decrease in new materials for loan at the library due to Christie's proposed 50 percent cut to direct state aid.

"We use all our state aid money to buy books and other circulating materials," said Malar. "It would be a huge blow to us."

In addition, the governor has proposed that the State Library and its affiliate, Thomas Edison College, be merged with the State Museum and governed by Rutgers University.

Malar and his staff are unsure how to react to the governor's proposal. They are waiting for the New Jersey Library Association, the main advocacy group in the state on behalf of libraries, to advise.

"These are the most serious threats we have ever faced for New Jersey libraries," said an NJLA spokesperson.

This is a developing story. Check Cranford Patch again for the latest.