Insights Library Newsletter

Insights Spring 2010

An audio stream of this newsletter is also available.

A Note from the State Librarian, Norma Blake

In light of the current economic climate we all are facing, I give my space in this edition of the NJ State Library’s Talking Book & Braille Center’s (TBBC) Insights newsletter so that the Friends of the Library may inform you of the hard work and advocacy they are doing for your Library.

The New Jersey State Library currently faces a 74% cut in state funding which will have a direct impact on the future of the Talking Book & Braille Center. We are very proud of our Library Champions (njlibrarychampions.org) who are speaking up on behalf of the services we provide free of charge. Be assured, the Friends are working hard to educate our legislators and inform them of the potential impacts the proposed budget cuts may have on you.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Become a Library Champion and visit njlibrarychampions.org. Tell us what the Talking Book & Braille Center means to you. Join the Friends of the Library as they advocate for your services. Call the TBBC Development Officer, Erin MacCord to learn who your local representatives are so that you may share your personal story with them.

Thank you for your support as we continue to make the public aware of the power of libraries!

- Norma Blake, New Jersey State Librarian

The NJ State Library Talking Book & Braille Center is supported by funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services through its Grants to States program.

Facts about the NJSL Talking Book & Braille Center

- Adam Szczepaniak, Director

More than 81,000 unabridged titles are available in one or more formats

• 69,000 + books in audio format
• 18,000 titles are available by downloading any time of the day
• 15,000 + books in Braille
• 151 magazines in Braille and audio
• 42 magazines are available for downloading

We add the linear equivalent of 2 football fields of volumes each year!

There are more than 240,000 New Jersey residents eligible for our program:

• Our youngest customer is 3 years old
• Our oldest customer is 106 years old
• We have 47 customers over 100 years old
• 45 of our customers have been using our library for over 40 years

Last year we:

• Loaned over 310,000 Braille and cassette books
  and descriptive movies
• Received over 30,000 telephone calls
• Handled nearly one ton of mail a day

In the past six months:

• We sent out new digital players to 22% of our customers
• One third of those patrons are already downloading books online
  through BARD (Braille & Audio Reading Download)
• Our members have now downloaded over 25,000 books

We produce a radio program every weekday (Audiovision) that broadcasts the local news from 7 New Jersey newspapers with the help of 100 volunteer readers. It is available to cable TV subscribers and via the Internet.

We offer a second newspaper service (Newsline) that gives customers telephone or Internet access to over 300 newspapers (six in Spanish) and sixteen magazines.

Message from the Friends of the library

The Friends are working hard advocating for the Talking Book & Braille Center. The following is an excerpt from the testimony of Ottilie Lucas, Secretary of the Friends, given at a public NJ State Budget hearing in April.

Cuts in the budget are necessary but cutting funding to The NJ State Library Talking Book and Braille Center (TBBC) would devastate the ability for my blind colleagues to access newspapers, pertinent information and general accessible reading materials.

… Library services are vital to all people. They are the only way that the blind community can reasonably obtain reading materials and current information in a format that is accessible to them.

Please make sure that funds continue to be provided from the State of New Jersey to the New Jersey State Library Talking Book and Braille Center or we will lose the additional federal funds and have to close our TBBC.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO THE FRIENDS

Thank you Friends for your purchase of digital cartridges on behalf of the New Jersey State Library Talking Book & Braille Center (TBBC). We are very pleased that we can now produce digital books on cartridges to loan to our library borrowers. The cartridges, along with mailer containers purchased by the Friends in October 2009, will go a long way in supplementing the single title books we receive from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. We plan to create book samplers on single cartridges of select author series, genre sample titles, best seller combinations and more! 

We appreciate the continued support of the Friends and look forward to sharing with you the results of our digital book collection that is a direct result from your generous contribution.