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February 16, 2009

As Warren County prepares to build a new county library headquarters, it's a good time to rethink the splintered delivery of services that separates the county and five towns with independent libraries.

Editorial Express-Times

Friday, February 13, 2009
County-community partnership

Warren County's patchwork quilt of library services is difficult for most people to understand, but it works -- on about three different levels.

Could it be better? Yes.

Is there an easy way to get the players -- the county library system and five independent municipal libraries -- together to talk about it?

Forget about it.

Then again, there is some progress to report. County freeholders are finally getting around to building a new home for the county's main library, which moved into "temporary" quarters in the courthouse annex in Belvidere in 1973. A mere 36-year wait.

The freeholders plan to spend $20 million to renovate the courthouse and erect a library- human services building at the administration complex on Route 519. The borrowing without public consent is being challenged by Assemblyman Michael Doherty, a former freeholder, who has urged a referendum.

While public input is usually a good instinct -- it's a constitutional requirement on bonding by the state -- Warren County's debt is nearly nonexistent. It's not like the freeholders have mortgaged the future on Taj Mahal-type projects. Just the opposite. In keeping debt to a minimum, the freeholders have put off many capital needs, year after year. The library headquarters is the most glaring example, but the courthouse and community college have had to wait out delays, too.

It's time for the county to move on this. The freeholders deserve a pass if they don't take up Doherty's challenge. Delaying this expansion again could result in yet another long delay.

And besides, it's an economic stimulus.

On another front, Freeholder Everett Chamberlain extended an invitation to Phillipsburg officials to renegotiate the partnership between the county library system, which serves 17 municipalities, and the Phillipsburg Free Public Library, an independent library that makes its services available to those covered by the county system. Four other municipalities -- Alpha, Belvidere, Hackettstown and Washington -- maintain independent libraries and don't pay a county library tax. Their residents must pay a fee to use libraries in the county system.

With a new library headquarters in the works, however, it's a fertile time to see who would like to rethink this separate-and-unequal setup. If the small independents want to remain autonomous, fine -- but some of those people might prefer free access to the county system.

Phillipsburg and Warren County have maintained a tenuous library peace for a decade, after sparring during the 1990s over a county subsidy for a Phillipsburg library expansion. So far town officials aren't saying anything about Chamberlain's gesture, because there are no proposals on the table.

But it's a start. Chamberlain says he wants to open communications, not old wounds.

Warren County has a progressive, if disjointed, approach to library resources. It would better serve everyone if the county, Phillipsburg and the independents could find a way to allow all county residents to use all the facilities. That's not a revolutionary thought -- it's just the way you'd put together a library system if you were starting from scratch.

Posted by tumulty at February 16, 2009 10:29 AM

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