Letters to the Editor

From the March 29 edition
City residents suffer

while library remains closed
To the editor:
   I saw your article about the Bordentown library not opening yet. It caused me great grief to hear about this. For some of us, our town library has great significance.
   When I grew up, rather poor, in New Brunswick, both my parents worked so when I came home from school, nobody was there. But there were other kids, neighbors, the campus of NJC, and then there was this magical place called the New Brunswick Public Library. There the librarians welcomed me like one of their relatives who had just come home from a long journey. Not only was the library my second home, but it soon became my second school. If it were not for that library, I think I would not be able to write this sort of letter today.
   Since 2003, when I returned to Jersey, the Bordentown library has been closed, from its original site, for three years. Now, when we have this magnificent new place, we cannot enter it. All the librarians and their marvelous staff are ready to go, all the books are standing upright on the shelves, all the shelves are arranged neatly, the walls are beautifully painted, the carpeting is lovely, everything is ready to go since December, 2006. Why can’t I as a member of the public library enter it? I’m told it is because of undone paper work, not by the librarians, but by the local government people who have no been able to get it done since last December.
   To those people who are holding us hostage from the library, I say, do you not understand what grief and sadness some of us feel when we cannot enter our library? It means you are depriving us from using the most wonderful place in our town … our library.
   Mae Silver
Bordentown