Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST
Trenton Public Library: Increasing Access for Trenton’s Success
By Tammy Duffy
Our society may have no greater obligation than to ensure that every young person develops the academic, social, and personal attitudes and capacities that will lead to a fulfilling and successful life. Youth follow a journey to discover and then to develop their own talents, interests, preferences, and personal voice. For some, the path to developing their unique capacities and establishing their distinctive identities and voices is paved with multiple opportunities to read, explore, experience, and pursue interests during the out-of-school-time hours. For others, their voices are stifled by limited access to books, trips, learning experiences, and technology. This lack of access can have dire consequences, leaving our youth with restricted voices and “nothing to say at all.
The Trenton Public library is expanding its services to ensure that the children in the city of Trenton will have access to books and the services they offer.
Recently, the library had Californian artist, Nicole Blackburn, is the founder of Big Sky Countries paint a mural in the new children’s room in the basement of the library.
Nicole came up with the name Big Sky Countries for her non profit because all of the murals she donates have a sky depicted in them.
She uses the sky that was outside the building of the prior mural she just finished to place in the next mural she accomplishes. The sky that is depicted in the mural at the Trenton library is actually from a morning sky she saw in Newtown, PA while painting a mural there in November of this year. The main mission of Big Sky Countries is to donate large-scale murals to facilities around the world. Since 2006, murals have been painted by Nicole Blackburn in Thailand, Ireland, the Philippines, Bolivia, New Orleans, Costa Rica, Atlanta, Los Angeles and now Trenton. The mural she just completed at the library is her largest piece to date. The first mural Nicole ever painted was during her college years for a fraternity who’s emblem was a dragon. Nicole has donated about 20 murals throughout the world.
Nicole uses all water based paints to create these murals. The murals have an infinite lifetime. Nicole uses her own money to make these murals throughout the world. Some area children got a sneak peek of the mural being created at the library and they were wildly gleeful when they saw it.
Nicole collaborated with the library to develop the concept for the mural. They wanted it to have elements of enchantment, fantasy and dragons. During her youth Nicole always played with fairies versus Barbie dolls. A drawing was created for the project and this was utilized as the template for the mural. There were subtle changes made from the original drawing based upon input from the librarians, police officers and those who donated money for the mural project. There were additions of peacock feathers, ducks, monkeys and bears added to represent the old zoo that used to reside at Cadwalader Park in Trenton many years ago. The mural is an artful treasure hunt for the children. The new Children’s room will also have a “tween” component to it as well.
There is a new Adult Learning Classroom opening in August at the library as well. There will be a variety of products and services available in the Adult Learning Classroom. The new services will include: Treehouse which is an online video and interactive learning platform that teaches people how to design and develop websites and mobile apps, Job Accelerator which integrates each part of the job search process in one place, Lynda.com which is a robust online video training library of more than 1,400 videos taught by industry experts and Rocket Languages which is an award winning interactive online language learning system.
A new media box is also coming in August to the Trenton Public Library. This new media box will work like a Redbox machine. People will utilize their library card to access the device. This is a completely new, innovative, interactive way for residents to access DVD’s at the library. It will inside the library and people can begin using in during the second week of August. There is a touch screen to allow people to select the movies they want. This same touch screen allows them to return the DVD’s they checked out as well. They can be checked out for four days.
In October, there will be two new library outposts in the city of Trenton. These library outposts will allow the TPL to have an expanded presence in the community to assist families who have no ability to get to the library. It combines three components: a book drop, a book vending machine (that can hold up to 300 to 500 pieces of material) and a locker system. The way it will work will be: If you want to place something on hold you can use your smart phone or computer to do so. You will reserve items by using your library card and specifying what time and which library outpost you want to pick your selections up from. The TPL will then drop off the books that were placed on hold and place them into the lockers at the outpost you selected. To pick up the books you will use your TPL library card to open up the locker at the outpost. When you want to return them you take them back to the drop box at the outpost.
The library is coming to the residents versus the residents having to go to Academy Street to the library. The library already has a mobile version of their website for people to use in this process. The locations of the outposts are still being determined. The library would like the cities and communities input on the placement of the library outposts. If you have any suggestions on where they should be located, please contact the library and share your ideas. The criteria for the outposts are: they need to be indoors, safe, have data cables and be accessible to the public. There will be an additional two outposts added within the next year if funding is granted and the first two are successful.
In the next two years the Trenton Public Library hopes to have a new Cybermobile. The "Cybermobile" is a state-of-the-art mobile technology center on wheels. This air conditioned bus will be equipped with 20 desktop computers and a large-screen "Smart board" for instruction. The wheelchair accessible bus will offer classes in computer and internet basics...along with classes on Windows and e-mail. It will also have a hot spot with round tables for people to work and use the internet outside as well. This project is heavily dependent on funding from the city
The address and the hours of operation of the Trenton Public Library are: Monday-Thursday 9amto 8pm, Friday and Saturday: 9am to 5pm at 120 Academy Street, Trenton, NJ 08608
