EAST BRUNSWICK — The East Brunswick Public Library is known in the community for staying on the cutting edge, but accommodating the new sometimes means snubbing the old.
In an effort to live up to that expectation, library administrators chose to freeze new CD purchases in September after closely monitoring circulation data and determining that CD checkouts have declined steadily over the last five years.
The library’s current collection of more than 10,000 CDs will be available to library patrons for the foreseeable future, according to Director of Library Services MaryEllen Firestone.
“There comes a tipping point when we decide that it is not worth the money that we’re spending to keep collections up,” Firestone said. “We’ve done this sort of thing many times in our history, so it’s not an unusual circumstance.”
For one library patron though, it is an intolerable one.
The patron, who did not want to be identified, expressed concern over limiting the music collection. He termed the practice unfair to taxpayers.
According to Firestone, the opposite is true.
“The library is run by [residents’] tax dollars, so we have to be sensitive to what collections we’re supporting with their money. … The circulation of music CDs has been dropping, on average, 20 percent each year,” she said.
The patron asked if books themselves, the apparent backbone of libraries across the world, should be petered out in favor of ebooks and online book access.
The bottom line, Firestone said, is that book circulation has not dropped a tick, so while physical books may appear to be on the chopping block, the data says otherwise.
Besides, she added, libraries have become much more than warehouses for books.
“I consider us a house of knowledge. How we disseminate that knowledge has changed, but we still have many thousands that get their information from the library and through our website,” Firestone said.
It is the library’s willingness to embrace change that has led to its long-term success and cemented its position as the cultural and communication hub of East Brunswick, she said.
“We are very much a living, breathing, changing organization that is really listening to our community. The community votes with their feet, so if they stop taking out music CDs, we’ll stop purchasing new ones,” Firestone said.