Visit from Japanese Dignitaries
For photos of this event, click
here.
A group of Assembly members from Hiroshima City,
Japan recently visited the Springfield Free Public Library. One of the
Japanese dignitaries wrote a message in Japanese on the youth services’ desk
alongside messages in many languages. The message says, “A place to find
peace, the library.”
The Japanese group was in the United States as part of a group
advocating for the end of nuclear proliferation and peace. While their mayor
was in Manhattan speaking to the United Nations, the group toured the
Springfield firehouse, municipal building and library.
Girl
Scouts Plant Flowers at Library
Top row: Maura Gomez and Suzanne Conte Middle
row: Anna Gomez, Darien Slattery, Savannah Stramowski, Leah McCusker, Marissa
Chusid, Dominique Conte, Allysa Wendolowski Bottom row: Sara Denner, Riley
McGregor, Arielle Dror and Elizabeth Gomez Not pictured: Nicole Merkelbach
A Brownie troupe, the Girl Scouts of Washington Rock, Troup 31, helped
beautify the Springfield Free Public Library in their community planting
project in the beginning of May. The flowers were donated by Maplewood Nurseries. All the
Brownies involved are in the first grade.
Troupe leaders Maura Gomez and Suzanne Conte
followed mom Natalie Stramowski’s idea, who had been a troupe leader in
another location, to do a community planting project. The leaders contacted
the library and worked with the director Susan Permahos to pick a spot.
The
project is another notch on the belt of these budding naturalists—they’ve
also been camping, and are involved with nature, outdoor activities and
digging in the dirt. The girls will receive a community service badge for
their efforts.
Library Grand Opening
Celebration
For photos of this event, click
here.
More
than 200 people attended the Springfield Free Public Library’s Grand Opening
on Apr. 17, celebrating six years of planning and renovations to create a new
Audio Visual and Teen Room, among other renovations, for Springfield Library
patrons. The James L. Dean Orchestra played swing music at the celebration and
honored guest, author Belva Plain, spoke about the importance of libraries in
the community.
Other
speakers included library Board of Trustees President Myrna Wasserman, Mayor
Sy Mullman, library patron Bob Steinhart and Director Susan Permahos.
The
library honored the Township Committee, Union County Department of Economic
Development, contractor Adel Botros of A.B. Designs, architect The Goldstein
Partnership, the Friends of the Library, including Friends president Jim
Mooney with the purchase and dedication of new books chosen in their honor.
The library also remembered Ruth Weisman, and Marge Wellbrock, who have had
rooms named after them during the renovation project.
The
swing concert included the music of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Benny
Goodman. Funding for this concert was provided by the A. Leigh Balber
Memorial Fund and in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts,
Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts,
through a grant administered by the Union County Division of Cultural and
Heritage Affairs.
A picture cake was donated by Shop Rite of Garwood. Commerce Bank also donated
a cake in honor of National Library Week, April 10-16.
The
Springfield Public Library is located at 66 Mountain Ave., Springfield. For
more information, call (973) 376-4930 or email questions@springfieldpubliclibrary.com.
OCLC, the Online Computer
Library Center, has developed an advertising campaign to raise the visibility
of libraries. The 12- to 18-month campaign consists of a series of national
print ads and similar posters.
Through the advocacy
campaign, OCLC hopes to raise awareness of critical library issues, enable
more informed dialogue, and ultimately help libraries demonstrate their value.
The campaign is designed to help convince state and local
budget decision-makers that the library is a sound economic investment. It
highlights the economic impact
of libraries, where small businesses often get their start, where people go to
find jobs, and where communities form. In addition, for every $1 spent on
libraries, a community sees $4 to $10 in return.
The idea of doing
advocacy grew naturally out of OCLC's “2003 Environmental Scan: Pattern
Recognition” report and the many presentations and discussions that resulted
from it. As library staff members read and reflected on trends in our larger
culture, the idea of "branding the library experience" continued to
resonate. The necessity of marketing library values—especially in the era of
tighter budgets—was obvious.
So OCLC decided to put
its money where its mouth was. For the calendar year 2005, OCLC shifted
advertising from library-specific publications to a new audience of
nonlibrarians who influence budget decisions and technology purchasing for
libraries.
For the public library
campaign, E & J Gallo Winery graciously agreed to partner with OCLC. They
are a mini-case study of a successful small business that got their start in a
library. Matt and Gina Gallo are featured in the ad, as they are the third
generation to run the business—which currently produces more wine than the
entire country of Portugal. (Gallo produced 675 million liters of wine on
average from 1997-2001.) The company also happens to be Information Week's Top
IT business of the year for 2004.
Founded in 1967, OCLC
Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library
service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of
furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.
More than 50,540 libraries in 84 countries and territories around the world
use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library
materials.
Databases added to online resources:
The Springfield Free Public Library has added two new
databases to our selection of online resources: AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive
and CountryWatch.
AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive is an electronic library
that contains photographs, graphics, and text from the Associated Press. It
includes the AP’s current year’s photo reports, and approximately 700,000
older photos from their image library. Thousands of graphics and over 800,000
pieces of news can be accessed.
CountryWatch offers political, economic and business
information, updated daily, on 192 countries of the world.
CountryReviews contains 50-100 page annual reports
covering the demographic, historical, political, economic, business and
environmental background and contemporary issues facing each country.
CountryWire provides country-specific, comprehensive
daily news from 12 international news services with a 12-month archive in a
searchable database containing 180,000 stories.
CountryWatch Data is an online international database of
numeric data on demographic, economic, environmental and cultural topics.
Customized searches can be performed, comparing data from selected countries,
and the results can be easily downloaded.
Both databases have been made available at no cost to the
library and its users, thanks to INFOLINK: the Eastern New Jersey Library
Regional Cooperative. To check out the databases, click here.
The library is seeking Springfield residents who
wish to use its Homebound Delivery service, which provides library materials
to those unable to travel to the library due to temporary or permanent
disability. This program might appeal to senior citizens if they are
housebound or to those with permanent or temporary disabilities who cannot
easily come to the library to choose materials.
Reference librarians will work with homebound delivery
recipients to understand what kinds of materials match the recipient’s
interests. The recipient can also request specific materials from among the
library’s many books, magazines, videotapes, DVDs, books on tape, and
compact discs. The recipient of the service must provide certification from a
physician, visiting nurse or other health care professional and must possess a
valid Springfield library card.
For more information on this free service, please contact
the Springfield Public Library at (973) 376-4930, ext. 30 or email questions@springfieldpubliclibrary.com.
Springfield Free Public Library
66 Mountain Ave., Springfield, NJ 07081
Tel: (973) 376-4930
Fax: (973) 376-1334
questions@springfieldpubliclibrary.com
This page was updated on Wednesday, May 25, 2005