Plainsboro Public Library had its humble beginnings as a 500-book collection on four shelves in 1964. It was open four hours per week.
On June 8, the Plainsboro Public Library celebrated its 50th anniversary, a half-century journey from a four-woman best-seller book swap to a bustling community center with over 150,000 volumes. The library hosted a public reception and collaborative art exhibit, featuring an improvised duet performance by pianist Bill Bauer and weaver Liz Adams.
Celebrating the past but also preparing for the next 50 years, the library’s Board of Trustees selected a consultant to help prepare a strategic plan. After conducting a nationwide search and reviewing a pool of nine applicants, the library trustees chose one right from Plainsboro’s backyard: Library Development Solutions, a library consulting firm owned by West Windsor residents Leslie and Alan Burger. Leslie Burger is the current executive director of Princeton Public Library.
According to its website, Library Development Solutions was founded in 1991. Since then the firm has assisted more than 110 libraries in creating strategic plans, assessing community needs, recruiting library directors, building fundraising campaigns, and increasing advocacy. Company founder Leslie Burger has extensive knowledge of library systems, having worked for the New Jersey State Library for three years and the Connecticut State Library for a decade. After being honored as a 2005 New York Times Librarian of the Year, she was elected president of the American Library Association for the 2006-’07 term.
The firm particularly impressed Plainsboro library director Carol Quick with its forward thinking and vast experience in pushing libraries into the future.
In an interview for an article on the future of public libraries in the July issue of the Princeton Echo [a sister publication of the WW-P News], Burger was quoted emphasizing the value of partnerships with organizations around town in bringing diverse and even “potentially controversial” programming to the Princeton Public Library. She also highlighted the importance to library leaders of understanding pertinent community issues and “paying attention to what’s going on in their community, as opposed to jumping on a trend.”
Over the next six to seven months, the $16,000 strategic planning project, funded by the Plainsboro Free Public Library Foundation, will focus on both immediate and long-term challenges specific to the delivery of library services. According to Quick, some of the specific challenges that Plainsboro Public Library faces concern increasing study spaces for students of a growing school district, making sure library programming does not overlap with the Plainsboro’s recreational and cultural center, and keeping up with today’s technology.
The Plainsboro Library was managed by director Virginia Baeckler for 26 years, a pivotal leader in community-based library programming and both expansions of the library; the first in 1995 and the second in 2010. After Baeckler retired in 2011, Eileen Burnash had a two-year stint as the library director before resigning last July. She was replaced by Quick, then the assistant director, who has been working at the Plainsboro Public Library for almost 14 years.
“Back then [14 years ago], the Internet was still pretty new. People were saying, ‘Oh, books are going to be out of date,’ and ‘There won’t be anymore books,’ but that’s obviously changed,” Quick says. “Our circulation numbers are actually very high, and now we’re lending out electronic books as well, such as audio e-books for Kindles and iPads.” She also notes increased child participation as a significant change from the past. “Our summer programs were always well-attended, now they’re massive.”
Quick says the Plainsboro community expects more from its local library, following a recent move to a larger, brand new facility centered on Plainsboro’s Village Square in 2010. “We’ve become busier. We have meeting rooms now. We’re on a bus route. It’s a popular place for students to come and study,” says Quick. “Now that we’re settled in, it’s time to develop a plan of where we’re going for the next four to five years.”
The Burgers of Library Development Solutions declined to comment on their client or the details of their proposal.
