MATAWAN — Residents of Matawan and Aberdeen are invited to a community meeting to gather their input on library services Oct. 2 at the Aberdeen Township Municipal Building.
According to a release from the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library, the board of trustees is interested in learning more about the community’s ideas for the library and the services it provides.
Library Development Solutions, Princeton, will lead a discussion about possible future services, facility improvements, collections and programs. The information will be used to develop and implement a plan of service.
The library is conducting a visioning process to gather input from community members on how to better serve the area.
“We are asking people how they would like the library to serve them better,” said Carole Starr, president of the board of trustees.
“We had been thinking about hiring a company to do an analysis of the library for some years now, but we got serious about it in early 2008 and contacted Library Development Solutions,” Starr explained. “We wanted to ask the community what they wanted, because we knew the library needed some work.”
Library Development Solutions is a library consulting company and has held focus groups with different segments of the community to get information about their view of the library’s service.
Some of the groups that have met with the consultants include mothers with children, senior citizens and community leaders.
“The library is small and we need more space, but we didn’t want to build unless we knew what we were going to definitely need,” Starr explained.
According to Starr, both Aberdeen and Matawan fund the library. The board of trustees has four members from Aberdeen and four members from Matawan and one representative from the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District.
According to the Library Development Solutions Web site, the company has worked with over 100 libraries “to create plans and programs to transform services to the communities they serve.”
For more information, call the library at 732-583-9100. Registration is not required to attend the meeting on Oct. 2.
Contact Erin O. Stattel at [email protected].