Woodbury Public Library

Report to the City Council

For the Year 2010

In the year 2010 the focus of the Woodbury Public Library staff and Board of Trustees was to do more with less. The reduction in funding to the New Jersey State Library directly affected the amount of materials our library could offer to the public, the number of grants available and the number of professional development workshops available to library staff. The library staff worked hard to continue the level of service provided to the citizens of Woodbury and surrounding communities. In 2010 over 80,000 library items circulated to the public, and the library's public access computers were used more than 14,000 times. Our collection now numbers in excess of 63,000 books and audio-visual materials.

The library received additional funding in the form of grants or free programs for the public in 2010, including:

· A grant for over $6,000 from the Gloucester County United Way to add four new public computers to the library for local children to have access to Homework Help NJ, and for promotional materials encouraging literacy and library use to every student in the Woodbury school system.

· A family theater program presented by the New Jersey Theater Alliance.

· A grant for $500 from the New Jersey State Library for new music CDs.

· A free family arts festival sponsored by the Greater Woodbury Arts Council.

· A grant of $1500 from the Municipal Alliance for programming for local teens.

· A grant from the New Jersey Council for Humanities that funded a four-part series of programs on civil rights.

· A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that funded a program titled “Understanding Islam.”

· A grant from the Gloucester County Cultural and Heritage Commission to sponsor after-school art programs.

The many outreach activities provided by the library in 2010 included:

· Three weekly story time programs for preschool children.

· Monthly book talks at the Mews Independent Living and Assisted Living Centers.

· A weekly after-school program for children ages 6 through 12.

· Two monthly book discussion groups for adults.

· A weekly after-school program for children ages 13 – 17.

· Depository location for donations to the local food bank.

The Friends of the Library group has continued to be supportive; in 2010 the group funded the reupholstering of nine large chairs, summer programming for children and the purchase of a fax machine for public use.

The Board of Trustees and the staff of the Woodbury Public Library would like to express their appreciation to the mayor and city council of Woodbury for their continued support.

Respectfully submitted,

Jean A. Wipf

Library Director