Pennington Public Library
By: John Tredrea
To find a book in the Pennington Library, you look in the card catalogue. To take a book out, you have it hand-stamped.
The days of these practices and procedures are numbered. With a $15,000 matching state grant (meaning the borough will put up the same amount of money), the Pennington Public Library will enter, by early fall, the electronic age of finding books, checking out books and running a library in general.
Borough librarian Pat Butcher, who will retire at the end of this month (see separate story), said the New Jersey Library decided, about a year ago, to institute a grant program to help local libraries around the state modernize their systems.
"There are 38 libraries in the state, including ours, that are not automated," Ms. Butcher said Monday. "We were one of 15 libraries to get the grants. It was very competitive."
Once the new system is up and running, library patrons will encounter something similar to what’s been in place for a number years at the Hopewell Township branch of the Mercer County Library. To find a book, you’ll sit down at a computer terminal and search for it. Check-out of books will be done electronically. Patrons will be able to reserve books and renew check-outs via the Internet.