Trump Entertainment Resorts, Atlantic City, N.J., and the New Jersey State Library partnered to offer customer service training to more than 100 library staff members on June 19, 2008.  The training was held at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.

What prompted this unusual union? We brought noted library consultant Joan Frye Williams to New Jersey in May 2007 to present a program at our “Mid-Atlantic Library Futures Conference.” Ms. Frye Williams advised conference attendees about how to enhance our customer service.  She suggested that we treat people who use our libraries as guests and that we acknowledge that we are in the hospitality business. We thought about different customer service models we would like to emulate, and decided that we had experienced the most exemplary customer service at the Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City, NJ.

Peggy Cadigan, New Jersey State Library’s Consultant for Innovation & Communication, reached out to Trump’s Human Resources Department to see if they would consider sharing their expertise with library staff members from around the state.  The Trump Entertainment Resort staff, led by Jennifer Babcock, very generously offered to share their customer service training for free. Meetings between the two organizations revealed that there is much common ground and what seemed to be an unusual pairing turned out to be a very good fit.

The customer service training model offered by Trump Entertainment Resorts is known as “ACT.�? The acronym stands for Acknowledge, Connect, and Thank. The library staff who attended the training represented public, academic, school, and special libraries and staff members included professional and paraprofessional staff.  The training included interactive exercises, job-shadowing of Trump employees, and discussion of similarities in customer service experiences.Evaluations were uniformly enthusiastic and attendees found the training professional and definitely applicable to the library setting.

For more photos, see the New Jersey State Library’s flickr account.

Congratulations are in order to Margery Cyr, Director of the Old Bridge Public Library and Allan Kleiman, Project Manager of the “Senior Spaces” project at the Old Bridge Public Library.

The Old Bridge Public Library’s “Senior Spaces� Project: The Library Place for Baby Boomers, Older Adults and their Families celebrated their 1^st Anniversary on June 12, 2008 with a day-long celebration focusing on community events.  The events highlighted the various aspects of the program.

By transforming a portion of the Library into an area for “seniors� of all ages, Old Bridge has been able to anchor the space and turn it into an area for the community.  Some days you can see the Crafting Club or the Bridge Players in the space, other days residents with visual impairments are using the OPTELEC magnifier while others use the space to surf the net on the widescreen computers.  Computer classes were previously given in one of the Library’s quiet study rooms and now residents have a real computer classroom adjacent to “Senior Spaces,� where they can learn and explore.

The program continues to grow based on the needs of the community residents. Before the program started the Library hosted the Craft Club every Thursday, the Savvy Seniors Club, and “Senior Fridays,� developed by Allan M. Kleiman. Now, the basic computer classes have expanded into classes on digital photography and the Wii; programs have begun for Baby Boomers; a woman’s discussion group has just started and a film group will start in July. To aid seniors at both ends of the learning curve, the Library will begin working the Generations On Line to get seniors on the internet and will be working with seniors on Second Life.

Based on staff figures over 5,000 seniors (of all ages) were involved with programming, computer classes, and visiting “Senior Spaces.�

The program was funded under contract with INFOLINK, the Eastern Regional Library Cooperative and the New Jersey State Library, LSTA.  For further information about the program check out their blog and website at:  seniorspaces.blogspot.com and http://www.infolink.org/seniorspaces/.

Ellen O’Brien, Allan Kleiman, Cheryl O’Connor

Gustav Friedrich is retiring after serving ten years as Dean of the School for Communication, Information, and Library Studies at Rutgers University. On May 29, 2008, the Rutgers SCILS Program Associates met to honor him. Dr. Freidrich was presented with a selection of testimonials from library and information organizations throughout the state, as well as a beautiful paperweight inscribed: “Intrigued by the Challenge, Committed to the Journey, Inspired by the Destination.”

The Rutgers SCILS Program Associates is an organization with representatives from the broad range of Library and Information Science professions in New Jersey that recognize each other’s contributions to library services and the profession, that advocate for each other as the need arises, that provide broad support for SCILS, and that share information that may lead to further collaboration.

The New Jersey State Library is proud to have been associated with Dr. Gustav Friedrich during his tenure as Dean of SCILS, beginning in 1998.

During this time, the State Library and Rutgers SCILS have partnered in new and groundbreaking ventures. The New Jersey State Library presented a very successful Diversity Conference in 2004, with SCILS faculty participating as presenters. Rutgers SCILS also partnered with the New Jersey State Library, Thomas Edison State College, the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative and the New Jersey Library Association to receive two grants from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program from IMLS, totaling more than $1.5 million, to recruit urban librarians. As a direct result of this grant, eight students have received their M.L.I.S. degrees, ten students are currently enrolled in the M.L.I.S. program at SCILS and two students are enrolled in the Ph.D. program. Dr. Friedrich’s encouragement of this grant program is helping to revitalize our urban libraries in New Jersey by providing new professionals eager to work in this environment.

These successes occurred because of Dr. Friedrich’s openness and spirit of cooperation, coupled with his strong support of libraries.

We wish Dr. Friedrich a retirement as full and successful as his career has been.

You’ve probably noticed a trend in my last three posts — they’re all about going green.  I have to agree with Thomas Friedman, who noted last year that “…after traveling around America this past year, looking at how we use energy and the emerging alternatives, I can report that green really has gone Main Street — thanks to the perfect storm created by 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Internet revolution. The first flattened the twin towers, the second flattened New Orleans and the third flattened the global economic playing field. The convergence of all three has turned many of our previous assumptions about “greenâ€? upside down in a very short period of time, making it much more compelling to many more Americans.” (click here for full article)

I have always had an interest in green buildings, and the New Jersey State Library has recently stepped up its own recycling efforts, but I’ve only recently thought about paperless books.

 The popularity of the Kindle and the Sony Reader made me wonder.  Is an e-book friendlier to the environment than a paper book?  It appears that the jury is still out, although I did find out that “each paper U.S. book releases 8.85 pounds of carbon dioxide,” according to the recently released:  Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry. You can read the full discussion here.