Baeckler leaving after 20 years
By Allison Musante, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO In two weeks, the hushed halls of Plainsboro Public Library will become a little quieter without the infectious laughter of director Jinny Baeckler being heard from her second floor office.
After 20 years of service, Ms. Baeckler, 68, has decided to move on to pursue her interests in science education and spend time with family.
She leaves behind an visible contribution to the community a new library she helped build from the ground up, one which sees more than 1,000 people per day and serves as a hub for the township’s biggest cultural events of the year.
Ms. Baeckler called her time with the library “a wonderful ride and a great stop along the way.”
Respected and beloved by her colleagues and neighbors, Ms. Baeckler said she was only inches away from refusing the job in the first place.
”When I was called in to interview, the shades were drawn on these huge two-story windows and no sunlight was allowed to stream in,” she said. “No one talked to me, people were just bustling around. (Afterward) I called the board back and told them I was a very different librarian and I didn’t think it was a good fit for me.”
The library’s Board of Trustees offered her the job after reading her published work on running libraries creatively with little money.
”They said to me, ‘We want you to do that in Plainsboro.’ It became clear to me that this library could be a fabulous community, but no one understood it or cared enough for it.”
Before taking the job, Ms. Baeckler was a politically active spirit of the 1960s. As a participant of freedom rides in the South and advocate for integration, the Ramsey native said she began looking at who she wanted to become at a more mature age.
She then worked as a lobbyist out of Trenton, advocating for libraries in schools as well as arts education. She said she was happy to trade in Trenton’s problems for the challenge of helping Plainsboro blossom.
”A lot of what you see at the library comes from my background in the arts council the idea of art in everyday life,” she said. “You can’t get in and out without looking around and seeing some sculptures or paintings. It’s important to have it locally if parents can’t get their kids to museums in New York.”
Ms. Baeckler had originally planned to become a teacher. It was during her studies of Russian literature at Cornell University that she discovered a love of libraries. She enjoyed working a student job at the Cornell library, where she attained the director position while still an undergraduate. But it was her experience studying in Moscow that changed the course of her future.
”When I came back from Russia, it was the late 60s and living the academic life just didn’t appeal to me anymore,” she said. “After spending a year in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War and then coming back to America where people were beating their breasts about oppression it didn’t sit well with me and I knew I wanted something more, something different.”
As one of her first jobs out of college, Ms. Baeckler worked for the Princeton University Firestone Library cataloging Russian, German and Greek books, and from there, decided to pursue a librarian’s degree at Rutgers University.
To fulfill scholarship requirements, she spent two years heading Mercer County Library’s headquarters. The years-long journey led her to a realization.
”It was an accident of fate,” she said. “I found that anyone who worked in a library tended to be very educated. I found libraries had the intellectual pursuit of academia but had the people element I was looking for.”
The constant pursuit of knowledge is what she has loved most about her job, from answering children’s questions about their research to hosting cultural celebrations.
”You’re learning nonstop and dealing with so many people,” she said. “Did I know anything about Diwali or Chinese New Year? No. I had never had a visceral reaction to it. But after meeting with people to find out if this was something the library should sponsor, your world is just incredibly enriched.”
Mayor Peter Cantu said Ms. Baeckler will be difficult to replace.
”She is very much responsible for what the library is today,” he said. “It’s become a centerpiece of the community.”
He said her leadership is the key reason why the Township Committee supported the construction of a new library.
”She made it into so much more than a library. It has so many purposes now and a lot of the credit goes to Jinny.”
Reagan Naticchia, the library’s reference librarian, was one of the first employees Ms. Baeckler hired 20 years ago. Ms. Naticchia said Ms. Baeckler has given the community many wonderful programs, such as raising chickens, the cardboard canoe race, the newspaper chair competition and the numerous science programs.
”Jinny’s why I never left,” she said. “She’s genius level, a real gem.”
As her final duty as director, Ms. Baeckler will bury the library’s time capsule, which was buried at the former location in 2000 and will be opened in 2050. The capsule contains photos children took of stores, shoes and cars, letters and a book about “Y2K.”
”It’s a photographic record of life in 2000,” she said. “I wanted to re-inter it when we had our dedication ceremony of the new library, but the ground was too cold. This is will be my swan song.”
After leaving, Ms. Baeckler plans to spend most of her time working with Contact Science, a nonprofit group she co-founded that develops and lends museum-quality science exhibits to elementary school libraries for free in return for integrating science education into their curriculum.
She will continue living in Plainsboro and will act as a consultant to the library when it undergoes any major construction projects. Her paramount concern, however, is spending time with her grown children, Sarah and Gregg, who live on the West Coast.
”I’m glad I didn’t reject this place just because the shades were closed and people wouldn’t talk to me,” she said. “I knew Plainsboro was under-served and that this job would be a guaranteed success.”

