Belleville Public Library Named An American Star Library for 2nd Year!

Full article at http://www.LibraryJournal.com/ljindex2009x

New York, NY, November 16, 2009—For the second year in a row, the Belleville Public Library has been named an America’s Star Library by Library Journal magazine. America’s Star Libraries recognizes 258 libraries nationwide that are delivering exceptional service—the top 3% of all public libraries in the U.S.

Rankings are determined according to four measures of public service per capita—circulation (items checked out), visits, program attendance, and public Internet use. The ranking places the Belleville Public Library in the top tier among 7,268 libraries included in the data.

The Belleville Public Library is open six days a week, from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday – Thursday, 10:00 to 5:00 p.m. Friday, and 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturday. Five free public access computers are available, along with free wireless Internet throughout the building. Books, DVDs, books on CD and MP3, magazines and more are available for check-out. Free programs are offered for toddlers through seniors.

An active homebound delivery service brings the library to those who can’t make their way in the door. The library’s Facebook page and web site at http://www.bellevillelibrary.org/ make its catalog and many databases available for research to anyone, anytime. The library is supported by an active Friends of the Library group and an endowment fund through the Republic County Community Foundation.

Be Part of an Exciting New Project!

The library is initiating a project to digitalize our collection of newspapers published in Belleville and the surrounding communities since 1870. Newspapers are an invaluable source of primary source material for researchers, especially useful for birth and marriage announcements and obituaries, and news items.

For many years, the Belleville Public Library has served as a local history repository for Republic County, maintaining an extensive assortment of clippings, maps, family histories, cemetery records and census records, as well as newspapers on microfilm. People from all over the United States use the library’s local history collection.

The present microfilm reader is rapidly becoming obsolete, and is expensive to repair and maintain, so the Library Board has decided to pursue the digitalization of the microfilm newspaper collection. Digitalization means that the newspapers would be available on the Internet, and could be searched using keywords such as surnames, a huge benefit for researchers.

Additionally, instead of being limited to one person using a single roll of film on a single machine, digitalization would make the collection available on any computer, anywhere, anytime. Another benefit is that the library would no longer have to purchase and maintain the expensive reader/printer equipment, since any computer with Internet access would be able to access the data.

The cost of digitizing the library’s newspaper collection of 131 rolls of microfilm is $16,566.50. Since there is no funding in the library budget for this project, board members are seeking donations, memorials and grants to cover the cost of what they hope will be a long-term, permanent project of benefit to the entire community. Those interested in making memorials or donations may contact Leah Krotz, library director, at 527-5413.

To see what the digitalized newspapers would look like, visit http://lamarque.newspaperarchive.com

Warm Up at the Library

Enjoy a hot cup of coffee, tea or herbal tea at the library every day! Our new beverage center is open for business, courtesy of the Friends of Belleville Library.

Coffee and a selection of teas are available at no charge, but donations are gratefully accepted to cover the cost of this new service.