New Jersey State Library

A plan to preserve New Jersey’s rich cultural treasures held in museums, libraries and archives has come to fruition thanks to a Statewide Planning Grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) through their “Connecting to Collections preservation initiative.

For the first time a consortium of New Jersey cultural institutions, including the New Jersey State Library, The Newark Museum, the Rutgers University Libraries, the New Jersey State Museum, and the New Jersey State Archives, have the opportunity to assess statewide preservation needs and to develop short and long-term plans to conserve New Jersey’s vast collection materials. Groups representing libraries, history museums and archives throughout the state, including the New Jersey Library Association are involved in the planning process.

For further information contact Michele Stricker, Consultant, Library Development Bureau at 609-278-2640 Ext. 164 or email mstricker@njstatelib.

FULL STORY

• The New Jersey Collection will be visited by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts to assess the New Jersey and Rare Book collections. The project is the result of a successful grant application made by SLIC.

• Our health/medical librarian compiled and sent a bibliography of recent health books for posting to the State Dept. of Health and Senior Services intranet. And our business librarian was a roundtable speaker at the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners meeting, where she gave an overview of library resources and how to find marketing and competitor information in business databases.

• Inventory of the Reference Collection moved forward with the help of two summer interns. The Library’s new wireless capability helped making changes to the catalog easier because they can be done directly on a laptop carried into the stacks. The Reference Collection contains more than 16,000 items.

• Usage of State Library collections increased by 6% over last year, totaling 37,690. The Library registered 2,046 new borrowers for a total of 21,809, a 10.4% increase over last year.

• Digitization - The New Jersey Documents Collection received a new scanner through an IMLS grant. Library staff is using it, along with Adobe Acrobat 8.0 software, to create archival files from older Jerseyana and New Jersey Documents in the subject areas of immigration, migration, ethnicity and race. The 8.0 version of Adobe Acrobat is the first version to provide an archival .pdf, now an international standard. The scanned documents will be linked from the State Library web site www.njstatelib.org/cyberdesk  to our online catalog and is available on the New Jersey Digital Collections web page. They are also linked from the
  New Jersey Digital Highway http://www.njdigitalhighway.org. Some of the titles are: “What is Ethnicity?” - Howard Green, “Blueprint for a Drug Free New Jersey” – Thomas H. Kean (Governor), “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” – New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, “Trenton’s Foreign Colonies” – John S. Merzbacher, “Looking Back: Eleven Life Histories “– compiled by Giles Wright and “Arrival and Settlement in a New Place” – Giles R. Wright. 

• New brochure - Library staff members are producing  a new brochure that highlights the services and resources of the research Library. This new glossy brochure will be included in all outreach materials for the coming year. A new service is highlighted that allows people beyond
  New Jersey’s borders to get a library card and borrow from the State Library. 

Library sections gave a tour open to all State Library staff on May 16 entitled “Treasures of the State Library.” Originally intended for new employees, the tour was enhanced to give busy staff from other departments a closer look at the research library’s history and mission, its collections and the services it offers state government officials and personnel, New Jersey residents and to visitors of the library. As part of the tour, SLIC staff opened the State Library’s vault and told an interesting story surrounding an 18th century broadside that offered a reward for the return of the state treasury. Participants on the tour visited the special collections of law, U.S. Documents, Grant Information for Non-profits, Jerseyana and New Jersey State Documents as well as the reference, non-fiction and periodicals sections. The tour explained about the special services available to state employees with a State Library card including access to electronically formatted book and journal collections, the reservation and renewal of books and how to request materials from other libraries.

• The State Library announced it summer schedule of topical training sessions offered at mid-day. Sessions are one hour in length. They are held in the computer training lab at noon and repeated the next day at 1 p.m. Registration is open to the public but space is limited. Upcoming programs are: Using American Fact Finder to Get the Data that You Want, Conducting Genealogy Research at the State Library, Creating a Family Genealogy Project, Using Census Records in Your Genealogy Research, Navigating Legal Databases, Researching New Jersey Statutes and Regulations and Lexis Basics (online database). The schedule and registration are available at our website or contact ebeckett@njstatelib.org.

• The first year of the Library’s project to reach out and establish liaison with each state department is ending with positive results. Elements of this project included making an introduction, establishing a departmental contact and arranging departmental distribution of library literature, news and a survey. Measurable outcomes included:
1) 67% increase in interlibrary loan transactions for state employees
2) 8% increase in the number of library cards registered to state employees
3) 7.4% increase in number of information contacts by state employees.