Director's Page

Welcome to the Director’s Page.
Here you will find periodic messages from the Library’s Director, Laverne Mann.

CHPL is among New Jersey’s Busiest Libraries
Cherry Hill Public Library: 565,487 visitors

The CHPL is one of the state’s largest municipal libraries at 72,000 square feet. It has 30,187 total registered borrowers (28,785 resident and 1,402 nonresident) and 381,260 books in circulation.
In the state, there are 234 municipal libraries, 45 association libraries, 14 county libraries, and five joint libraries.

Click here for the full article.

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
October 20, 2020

Library Building open 
50 people maximum, 30 minute limits for patrons due to NJ State 25% capacity for libraries order

September: open 29 days, total count 8248
Up to average of 284 people per day
Wednesday (open 10 hours) highest counts each week, Saturdays 2nd busiest day
Highest people count for month: Wed Sept 30 – 397

August: open 30 days, total count 7846
Saturdays trending higher each week we are open

Contactless pickup appointments Contactless pickup – 272 

Library Card Sign-Up Month! During the month of September, CHPL welcomed  112 New Adult Card Holders and 55 New Juvenile Card Holders. We renewed 559 adult cards & 75 juvenile cards!!! Six patrons won $25 gift cards  (Target, Amazon or WaWa) Thank you to the Friends of the Library for purchasing gift cards and everyone who helped promote Library Card Sign up Month 2020 during a pandemic!

• Additional Google Grant awarded- Virtual Learning (Youth Services)- $1000
• FEMA grant 75% of PPE expenses- estimate $4000
• Opened Monday evenings in addition to Wednesdays until 8 p.m. 
• Mini book sale October 19- 21, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. 

Outreach:
Part of the Cherry Hill Township Senior Citizen Virtual Vendor Fair: http://cherryhill-nj.com/seniorvendorfair

Youth Services Board Report 
9/6/20 - 10/8/20

In person programs:

Virtual Programs for Kids (developed, created, filmed and edited):

Live online programs via Zoom

Our most popular offering in the past couple of weeks has been the introduction of Bookworm Boxes, 3 month “subscription” boxes for patrons in grades 3-12. The boxes are filled with Advance Reader Copy proofs of books that are sent to use before they are published. Since we are not allowed to sell or put into the collection, we wanted to distribute them to patrons in a fun way.

The boxes also contain candy and month-themed goodies. We had 41 kids and teens take advantage of this program. They will receive boxes for October, November and December. The October boxes have already been distributed and are almost all picked up.

We also put together a Story Walk for the month of October. The story, Owl Babies, was broken down and families can read the story page by page around the Youth Services department. Each page/station also has an activity to do or reading comprehension question.

We will still be offering some programs this Fall including On-demand Story Times and Story Breaks, Dungeons & Dragons for Kids and for Teens, Animal Crossing Open Hours on Wednesday Nights and Teen Activity Board meetings.

Adult Services Board Report:

Staff are currently working on the following duties daily:

• Staffing the Reference Desk 
• Making contactless pickup appointments
• Planning programs
• Ordering new materials
• Managing existing collections and weeding as needed
• Answering patron questions by phone, in person, and email
• Cleaning all public computers and shared spaces as they are used by patrons

Plans are underway for CHPL Seed Library 2021 to launch in February as well as instructional videos to reach the public on a wide array of topics (Using Ancestry from home, hoopla, OverDrive, etc.).

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
September 9, 2020

Library Building open Monday - Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. except: Wednesday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
50 people maximum, 30 minute limits for patrons due to NJ State 25% capacity for libraries order

Contactless pickup appointments (8/6 - 9/3): 384

Active Members: 26,409
New Members: 103
As of 9/3 we have 13,386 items checked out.

Look who stopped by for a visit! Councilman Carter had a tour of our library, accompanied by Library Director Laverne Mann. As always, we are thankful for the time and support our local Council representatives provide, as well as our Township.

• September is Library Card Sign-Up Month
• OverDrive Sora– students from designated school districts to use student ID’s to use library’s OverDrive Digital Collection
• Computer Lab opened Sept 8- distanced, computer removed, sanitizing
• Multicultural Meeting room available for rentals in Sept – up to 15 people. 
• State Aid for this year will be distributed in fall
• EveryLibrary Emeasures survey for Covid19 (March – July)

Youth Services Board Report
8/8/20 - 9/5/20
Virtual Programs (developed, created, filmed and edited)

Kids Story Break

Animal Crossing - Video Game

The Summer Reading Program ended on August 15.  Winners for the Children’s and Teen End of Summer prize baskets were drawn and distributed to a very excited group of kids (many via contactless pickup). The winning school for the CHPL Summer Reading School Competition this year was Kingston Elementary whose students read the most minutes and narrowly beat out Kilmer Elementary. The trophy has already been made and will be presented to the Principal of Kingston and Media Center Specialist sometime this Fall.

One Children’s Librarian and our Teen Services Librarian are taking Family Leave this Fall and will return in December. Our other Full Time Children’s Librarian will be working a modified schedule to accommodate her children’s schooling. We will still be offering some programs this Fall including On-demand Story Times and Story Breaks, Dungeons & Dragons for Kids and for Teens, Animal Crossing Open Hours on Wednesday Nights and Teen Activity Board meetings.

Adult Services Board Report:

Staff are currently working on the following duties daily:

• Staffing the Reference Desk
• Making contactless pickup appointments
• Planning programs
• Ordering new materials
• Managing existing collections and weeding as needed
• Answering patron questions by phone, in person, and email
• Cleaning all public computers and shared spaces as they are used by patrons

Adult Summer Reading Program:
298 participants
296 reviews logged
185 events attended
256 missions completed
172 badges earned

ASRP had 34 events with 533 attendees and 1832 views (total activity 2365).

chplref@chplnj.org emails answered (8/6 - 9/3): 22

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
August 12, 2020

Library Building opened to public –Monday, July 13
Wednesday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Phased reopen plan: 50 people maximum, 30 minute limits for patrons

Contactless pickup (7/15 – 8/5)    559 appointments
Active members: 26,734

New Members: 95

Library items checked out in July: 13,402

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
July 22, 2020

Library Building opened to public – started Monday, July 13 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. after 17 weeks closed!

        Adding a night: Wednesday 7/22 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. and a Saturday 7/25 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

        Phased reopen plan: 50 people maximum, 30 minute limits for patrons

Contactless pickup began  June 22 – July 14: we have completed 1190 contactless pickup appointments.

Book drops opened May 15- quarantine materials 3 days, reshelving items

As of 7/15/20 we currently have 10,663 items checked out

GRANTS:  New Jersey Council for the Humanities awarded  $5000 for Operating Budget
(Costs for PPE, cleaning supplies, plexiglass, revenue loss)
Grow with Google  awarded $2000 to support virtual computer classes

CHPL was selected by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission (WSCC) to receive a suffrage youth book sets to libraries across the country.  This generous donation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment and highlights the importance of libraries as hubs of civic education and engagement.

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
June 10, 2020

Library building closed since March 15 - Executive Order No. 104 (2020) 

• Book drops opened May 15- quarantine materials 3 days, reshelving items
  • 16,164 items checked out. We have been checking in 500 items a week on average
  • 160 temporary cards made since March closing 
• Preparing contactless pickup plans- May be week of  June 15, 2020
• Governor Murphy- Libraries Stage 2 of opening – “sometime after July 6th”
  • Phased reopening plan 

​​*NJLA Innovative Program Award winner – CHPL Beth Cackowski for Young Entrepreneurs program

Created a Video for CHPL 5th graders Move Up on behalf of the library
Working on FY21 Budget

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
January 2020

Congrats to Dr. Joseph Meloche for Outstanding Administrator of the Year from the
NJ Association of School Librarians (NJASL)

Cherry Hill Public Library
Director’s Report
September 2019

Town Council Proclamation for English as a Second Language tutors and librarian coordinator Elby Wang

Laverne Mann, Library Director
Director’s Message
The Cherry Hill Public Library is called ‘The Heart of Town’ and we truly want to live up to this standard.

We have created five strategic visions to broaden and enhance the quality of service we provide to patrons. These goals and tactics came out of a year of analysis, discussions, and community surveys.

The Cherry Hill Public Library wants to address the fast pace of change in society and technology. We want the community to use the library for reasons they told us were extremely important: for school reasons, entertainment, a quiet place to work or read, or to use the library computers and wifi.

To reflect the diversity of users in Cherry Hill we continue to evaluate our services, collections and programs. In the Cherry Hill schools, 30% of students are Asian, African American, Hispanic or other racial/ethnic heritage. More than 50 native languages are spoken by students and their families. More than 1700 students are bilingual, and more than 160 students receive ESL services.

Our surveys have found the community extremely satisfied with the staff courtesy and competence. The librarians and library staff are committed to rethinking collections and addressing societal and technological shifts. You will see us building more partnerships and on outreach in Cherry Hill.

The Cherry Hill Public Library has a bright future worth funding, and you belong at the library!