An ominous red banner currently hangs over the top of the JerseyClicks.com Web site, counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the state funding for library databases is cut off.
New Jersey residents likely have until July 1, the deadline for the New Jersey state legislature to pass the annual budget, before the harsh realities of a deeply indebted state hit home at local libraries.
"Starting July 1, you cannot go to a computer in the library and say I want this book and then have it come," Library Board of Trustees Treasurer Lois Bloom said. "You can reserve it, but you will have to go get it."
Bernards [Township] residents received over 2,000 books from other libraries in May alone this year, according to Bloom, loaning out even more. "We may be able to get together with six or seven other libraries and get a courier, but it's going to cost us," she said.
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Database usage in Bernards has been on the rise, potentially due to the poor economy and an increase in job seekers, according to Reference Librarian Ruth Lufkin. The number of searches on all state-funded databases increased 21.9 percent from 9,544 in 2008 to 11,635 in 2009. The amount of page views using the databases jumped 31.5 percent in the same time.
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Usage of EBSCO databases in Bernards has risen every year since 2006, up 78 percent from that time (5,165 searches in 2006 to 9,214 in 2009). The yearly increased exceeded 19 percent in each of those years.
Because of the loss of the regional library structure, the databases that are not provided by the state may also cost more money because the libraries had previously negotiated savings by pooling together, according to the library's Board of Trustees.
"There were four regional cooperatives. One of the regional cooperative directors took the job with negotiating with the database vendors to get really good pricing, and whatever pricing she got was honored by any other library in the state that belonged to the regions," Board member Mary Jane McNally explained.
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