The ribbon is cut, but visitors have been streaming into Millville’s new and improved public library for months now.
Still, who doesn’t love a good party?
Actually, the party started 160 years ago when the library was first founded. It was that anniversary—along with the official unveiling of its expanded digs—that drew a sizable crowd to the Buck Street building recently.
The event attracted politicians, book lovers, patrons of the library and sponsors who helped raise the money to pay for the estimated $7 million expansion. It certainly wasn’t easy. There was the fight to secure the money for the work, followed by several delays, followed by the mother of all delays—a worldwide pandemic.
The Carley Wing of the library, named for one of the main benefactors of the library extension, is open and full of light, designed with plenty of office spaces and rooms. The old library is now the location of the children’s section.
The expansion has given the library community plenty to celebrate, all while reflecting on its many years of service to the greater Millville community.
Ethan Aronoff, president of the library board since 2013, reflected on the library’s history and the effort to get construction finished.
“The wing came through several sources, including 200-plus donors,” he said.
In fact, the library was one of the final recipients of the Carley Foundation before it closed out. The Carleys owned the former Duralith Corporation and are known for their many charitable acts around the county, Aronoff said.
Other major donors were the Galetto Family Foundation as well as the state of New Jersey, which passed a bond referendum in 2017 for library construction. The referendum matched what was raised, giving the library a grant for $3.2 million.
Aronoff recalled the Millville Library has had several locations over the 160 years of its existence. From 1909 to 1963, the library moved into what was then known as Millville National Bank, now known as the Millville Historical Society at Second and East Main streets. Then it was moved to its current Buck Street location in 1963.
The library board’s president in those days, Charles E. Gant, helped find the funding to build on Buck Street. In 1977, a children’s wing was added.
“It’s a moment for the library,” Aronoff said. “It’s significant that we have been around here for that long.”
Aronoff said he’d never been a part of such a large construction project. He and other board members were warned the journey would probably not be a smooth one.
One delay happened when workers uncovered a large pipe made of copper, concrete and electrical wires at the edge of the construction site. “No one knew anything about it,” he said, adding they were unsure if the pipe provided electrical service to another part of town.
Still, Aronoff said the board kept pushing. “The board had the will to do this. We were inspired by the Carleys. We had the will, but we didn’t have enough wampum,” he said with a smile.
It took three years before the board saw any of the state grant money, forcing it to take bids on the work three times. Board members also had to keep cutting different things from the budget, such as the expansion of the basement area.
In the meantime, the library is struggling to pay bills because its operating budget, provided by the city of Millville, has remained stagnant for 10 years. While the state’s minimum wage has risen and insurance expenses have climbed, the money to keep the library afloat has stayed the same.
“In the last five years, we have had an enormous rise in minimum wage, Librarian Courtenay Reece said. “We have no way to keep up with that.”
Across the state, libraries receive funding based on a formula that uses the amount of ratables a city takes in. Millville Library’s budget is now short by more than $100,000, Reece said. Libraries in towns such as Vineland and Ocean City, on the other hand, have much larger budgets, allowing them the freedom to do more for their cities.
That shortfall frustrates Reece and the library board. Having access to its full budget would make a big difference, Reece said.
“That would allow us to make plans for the future. As it is right now, we are just running in place,” Reece said. “We’re not asking them to raise taxes, we’re just asking them to give us our fair share of what they’re taking in already.”
Lorinda Jarvis is a board member/volunteer with the Friends of Millville Public Library.
