Summer 2003 Edition  

The Library:  One of the Seven Wonders of Fair Lawn   In voting for the 7 Wonders of Fair Lawn, Fair Lawn News found that its readers are huge fans of Fair Lawn's library -- the books, librarians, videos, children's programs, book clubs, movies, art exhibits, free Internet access, classes, and all the activities. The library is clearly Fair Lawn's educational and cultural center. One teenager, Jessica, wrote "I can't believe it is open so much. I counted the number of hours my old library in the city was open compared to the Maurice Pine Library. The library in Fair Lawn is open 63 hours for 7 days a week. My old library was open 30 hours a week, only for 5 days." Readers gushed about all the programs for kids (toddlers to teenagers), including the summer reading programs, book groups, contests, games, crafts, movies, parties, and shows. One Mom wrote "I just love it that my kids beg me to take them to the library."  The children's staff offered 440 programs last year with a combined attendance of over 8700 kids. In 2002, the library circulated about 400,000 items. That's over 1,000 items a day. About 43% of these items were adult books, 23% were children's books, 22% videos and 3% DVDs. The library also circulates other media including music CDs, children's computer programs, and books on tape. Approximately $1.7 million of the library's $1.8 annual budget comes from our local property taxes. The state chips in about $37,000. Late fines and fees bring in another $60,000.  See Friends of the Library, for ways residents can help fund special programs.    How the Internet has Changed the Library  Fair Lawn News asked Penny Kaplan, the library's Assistant Director, how the Internet has changed the library. She said:  "The Internet hasn't made fundamental changes to the library's mission of "providing services and materials. But, it certainly has changed some of the ways we provide these services and materials. The Internet has not caused community members to use the library less. In fact, our library just celebrated its busiest year ever. Numbers show 2002 circulation at an all-time high. And it has had no impact on our services to young children. We're very proud of our active children's department. The Internet makes a lot more information available to anyone with access to it. Using the Internet, library patrons can now check the catalog and use full-text databases from home. With the collections of full-text databases, the library can now offer thousands of magazine and journal titles. And if you don't have Internet at home, we offer six public Internet terminals in the library, and they are almost constantly in use. The Internet facilitates the cooperation that allows Fair Lawn residents to borrow from the other 70 plus BCCLS libraries. That expands exponentially the amount of material available to a Fair Lawn resident. In 2002 Fair Lawn patrons borrowed over 55,000 items from other libraries. The Internet has definitely changed reference services. We no longer get entire classes of students in to research the same subject using just the books we have in this building. The Internet has expanded their choice of resources.  We are buying fewer reference books. Many reference books, costing hundreds even thousands of dollars, contain information that we can get more cheaply or free from the Internet or from databases delivered over the Internet. Why duplicate at great cost? A change as momentous for library services as the Internet is the availability and demand for so much audio-visual material. Our library offers DVDs, videos, CDs, audio books, and CD-ROMs. These are incredibly popular, accounting for about one-third of the items that were checked out last year. It is an on-going challenge to fund both the entertainment and educational aspects of our mission. Funding all the types of material and enough copies of what is currently in heavy demand can be difficult." With the Internet, Fair Lawn's reference librarians have been getting more detailed and complicated questions than they used to get.   Penny Kaplan said "The public expects us to be able to find out almost anything. And, using our more sophisticated searching skills and the vastly expanded resources we now have available (often delivered over the Internet), we can answer more varied and detailed questions than before." An example of common pre-Internet questions were: What is the state bird of Iowa and How many people live in India?   More recent questions include: How do I find the CUSIP numbers for 25 securities left in my father's estate and where can I get immunizations for a trip to Zimbabwe?    The Other Wonders of Fair Lawn     Recently, hundreds of Fair Lawn News readers voted for their 7 Wonders of Fair Lawn (See the articles in the previous edition on the Kraft / Nabisco Bakery and the Weir.    In future editions, Fair Lawn News will publish the other Five Wonders of Fair Lawn.    If you want to find out when our next edition is available, just type in your e-mail address in the box below and click Notify Me