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January 18, 2010

Beverly library to close temporarily

Jan, 13, 2010
By: Dave Maccar
Burlington County Times
BEVERLY—The Beverly Free Library on Cooper Street will be closing for an indefinite period of time beginning Feb. 1 due to a serious lack of funds.

Library Board of Trustees member Kathy Wade said the decision was made at a board meeting on Monday.

“We’re just bleeding money. We have the state cuts and the county cuts, we just can’t do it at this point in time,” Wade said.

Wade added that the library has always depended on income in the form of rent from the building next door, which the library owns.

“A pharmacy was in there for many years. There’s a two-bedroom apartment upstairs that was rented. That entire building has been sitting vacant and that was our main source of income,” Wade said. “We actually get very little money from the county, state and Edgewater Park and Beverly. It’s kind of a sign of the times.”

Board member Dennis Rogers said the apartment portion of the building has been vacant for about four months, but the business portion has been empty for nearly four years.

The library, which has been operating for 102 years and has been in its current location for 91 years, is a standalone operation and is not a part of the county library system, though it does provide the library with some funding, according to Gail Sweet, director of County Library Systems.

Contributing to the decision to close was the resignation of the library’s only employee and director Tracy Hall.

“When we sat down to talk about it, it was, ‘Tracy’s leaving, we’re in debt, we have no money coming in.’ We actually had someone in mind to step up and take her place, but no money to pay her,” Wade said. “We’re all very sad about it and upset and we’ve kept it going actually longer than we probably should have at this point with no income coming in.”

Wade said the board will be working hard to rent the apartment and to do additional fundraising with the hopes of reopening the library and soliciting donations from the public.

“All of us are just really sad. The library is my home away from home,” Wade said. “Hopefully it will only be temporary.”

Rogers said the library may only be closed for a month or two.

“We have to look everything over, look where we can cut, which might be hours or days of operation,” he said. “We will reopen, it’s not like we’re closing forever. We just have to look things over and it will help us actually to close for a month. We’ll be saving a month’s worth of (heating) fuel in February. But we will be back.”

In the meantime, library patrons are directed to use the Burlington County Library. For information on county services call 609-267-9660.

Staff writer David Maccar can be reached at 609-871-8068 or dmaccar@phillyBurbs.com.

January 13, 2010 04:52 PM

Posted by tumulty at January 18, 2010 3:34 PM

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