BY ANN GENADER
WEST MILFORD — Libraries today are much different than they used to be. Gone are the days when books and other printed materials were all that libraries offered. The new 17,000 square feet West Milford library – embracing technical advances – has new goals and objectives. These are in place largely because the two story building is 10,000 square feet larger than the former library.
What's newOn terms of what is different from the old building, books are no longer divided between a circulating collection and books in storage. All of the items are on the floor and available for browsing, with enough space for approximately 15 percent growth in the collection in the future.
Theresa McArthur, in the Children’s Library on the second floor, will continue to thrill and challenge children with her well-known craft projects – but instead of being squeezed into a section of the former library room, these activities will be done in a separate room. With space no longer a problem, McArthur said she’s preparing many new surprises for young people to enjoy and learn from in the future.
“We never had the room or capacity to have computers solely for children in the Children’s Room," said Library Director Richard Pino. “We now have two desktop computers solely for children, loaded with the software needed for any research or work assignments. We also have a bilingual Early Literacy Workstation for younger children, funded by the Friends of West Milford Library. We are purchasing two iPods for the Children’s Room.”
In the next few weeks, thanks to the West Milford Board of Education, there will be 20 Chromebooks housed in the library for use by township school children who can use wi-fi with them.
The library has its own fully accessible conference room available for library meetings – as well as small group meetings.
“Our building comes with a robust technology infrastructure that’s designed to expand to fill future needs,” said Pino. “While in our old building we had one wireless access point that provided spotty wi-fi in the building, we now have nine wireless access points blanketing the entire library portion of the building, with the township providing three of its own wireless access points for its meeting rooms.
Quiet study and research roomsThere are two quiet study rooms available for tutoring sessions, small study groups – or as the name says – quiet study. The rooms can be reserved in one-hour sessions.
The library section of the new building has better facilities to enable library patrons to conduct research. The atmosphere, with high ceilings and large windows to provide the maximum available natural light, enables people to focus on doing what they came to do at the library.
To find out about all that is now being offered, people will need to explore for themselves. The surprises are many. On the main floor, for instance, they will find an area with an environmental kiosk. It has a touch screen that they can tap on to find locations such as New Jersey and after entering that with the touch screen they can tap into their areas of choice – fish and wildlife, forest, air, weather, ocean, wetlands and so much more.
The township portionThe 27.5 percent of the building dedicated for use by the township includes six meeting spaces. Two of those rooms can be further subdivided with partitions into smaller rooms. Signing up for those spaces is done through the Community Services and Recreation Department, located at the West Milford Recreation Center. This procedure is much the same as was in place to reserve rooms at the Hillcrest building.
The building itself has a generator and is on the township underground storm hardening circuit, unlike the previous building. Pino said with a robust electrical and technology infrastructure, the building should be ready to support the public and its needs in times of natural disasters.
The library and community center is located at 1490 Union Valley Road, next to town hall.