Nyack Library Competitors

A unique and diverse city in the midst of a total renaissance, Hackensack is home to 45,000 people in the heart of Bergen County, New Jersey. Our city’s Downtown Redevelopment is bringing thousands of new residents to Main Street and its surrounding areas, and along with them outstanding small businesses, more jobs, greater tax revenue, and new energy. Conveniently situated along major highways, we are also served by two NJ Transit train stations and our downtown bus transfer station provides access to virtually anywhere. In addition to being the home of the Bergen County Judiciary, County Government, our world-renowned medical center, and nationally recognized educational institutions, the extraordinary history of Hackensack dates back to the 1600s and General George Washington even briefly headquartered here during his famous 1776 Retreat.

The Ramapo Catskill Library System (RCLS) is a non-profit, cooperative public library system chartered in 1959 by the New York State Board of Regents. RCLS working cooperatively with its member libraries, provides coordinated services, guidance, training, support and leadership to member library trustees and staff to sustain their effort to be responsive, proactive, vital community institutions that meet the changing needs of their users in Orange, Rockland, Sullivan and southern Ulster counties. Working in cooperation with member libraries, RCLS helps to raise awareness about library services and works to eliminate barriers to library access and use. The Ramapo Catskill Library System serves 47 chartered public libraries in urban, suburban and rural settings encompassing a total of 2,467 square miles with a population of 750,795 (2010 US Census). Each library has its own Board of Trustees and Director. The RCLS headquarters is located in Middletown and is not open to the public. The System is governed by an eleven-member Board of Trustees who are unsalaried and whom the member libraries’ trustees elect for five (5) year terms at the System’s Annual Meeting. The Board also includes a non-voting member who represents the Directors Association. RCLS is a member of the Southeastern New York Library Resources Council (SENYLRC), which is a state funded, multi-type library cooperative that offers multi-county interloan; Library Trustees Association of New York State (LTA); New York Library Association (NYLA); and the American Library Association (ALA). The System provides Automated Network SERvices (ANSER) a program that manages circulation, borrower registration, an online catalog, reserves and interloan. ANSER also provides access to a fiber optic wide-area network linking all member libraries, statistical reporting of collection use and other relevant data and cataloging services. Member libraries pay for most of the operating costs of ANSER.

The New City Free Library was founded in 1936 and was originally housed in the New City School. Books were provided primarily by the school and by public donation. The library received $100 in state aid, and matching funds were raised by Library Committee bake sales, tea parties, book sales, and fashion shows. In 1942, the New City Library Committee, "an unincorporated association of citizens" offered New City School District #5 the books it owned in an arrangement whereby the School Board would support the New City Free Library, and the Committee would continue to handle library business and select books. By 1950 the school district could no longer support the library due to centralization and the need to convert the spaced used by the library into a classroom. A request was made to the Town Board of Supervisors for a $500 annual fee to support the library. A local attorney donated his legal services to incorporate the Library Committee as the New City Free Library Association, and applied for a charter with the State Education Department. A provisional charter was obtained in 1951, along with a grant of $100. The library moved to the basement of the school while plans for a building went forward, paid for by contributions from the townsfolk, donated materials, and a charter membership fee to the library of five dollars. The New City Fire Department donated land on Maple Avenue. In 1953 the library opened, financed primarily through yearly membership drives. The library was open twelve hours per week. 1956 saw the first discussions of obtaining library support from the taxpayers, and in 1958 a petition supporting tax support through the school district was adopted. The library's annual budget was $5,000. Today the library is a modern facility serving nearly 50,000 people, in the communities of New City, Congers, and Bardonia, with a collection of about 170,000 volumes and a circulation of over one half million.