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February 27, 2009

Hunterdon County Library Director: More Customers, Fewer Librarians

by Warren Cooper/Hunterdon County Democrat
Friday February 27, 2009, 10:34 AM
Three unfilled job vacancies at the main county library are hurting services there and could affect the safety of children, according to Library Director Mark Titus. He wants the Freeholders to allow him to fill at least one of the spots, despite a county-wide hiring freeze.

The Freeholders did not replace a children's librarian who left in July or a reference librarian who left in September due to the "modified" hiring freeze imposed midway through 2008. But a jump in library use due to the recession as well as a steady increase in circulation over the years has made the employees' loss more difficult to overcome, Mr. Titus told the board at a budget meeting on Monday.

Attendance at library programs swelled to more than 25,000 in 2008, he said. And circulation throughout the system has grown steadily during the past decade, jumping 21% in 2008 over the previous year. That was the largest increase of any library in the state, he told the Freeholders.

That means there are more people in the library at any given time. Self-checkout systems donated by the Friends of the Hunterdon County Library for the Route 12 main library in Raritan Township and at the North Branch library in Clinton have helped divert some activity from the circulation desks. But already-tight staffing makes it impossible to shuffle workers, he said, and some work done by the full-time librarians cannot be done by other staff even if they had the time.

The loss of the children's librarian means that two weekly story time sessions at the Ringoes library have been cancelled, as have monthly programs for youngsters and teenagers, and a twice-monthly school group visits. It also has limited one-on-one interactions between children and adult librarians, he said.

And after shifting library workers to cover for the missing staff, he has had to close the periodical room in the evenings.

Importantly, he said, there are fewer eyes and ears to be on the lookout for a child in trouble. He said more and more residents view the library as a cost-free place for family fun. Without proper staffing, the danger of a lost child or abduction increases, he said.
The Freeholders said they might break the hiring freeze to replace the children's librarian, but made no promises.

Posted by tumulty at February 27, 2009 6:09 PM

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