The Library Celebrates 80 Years of Service to the Community

It was 1931 and the depths of the Great Depression when the ladies of the Springfield PTA met to form a library association. The committee donated $50.00 cash, collected books, ordered tables and chairs and set about arranging the library in donated space in the Brookside Building on Morris Avenue. When the doors finally opened on March 16, 1932, the Springfield Free Public Library had 1,000 books and letters of congratulations from President Herbert Hoover and Governor A. Harry Moore. In the first year they issued 750 library cards.

On Sunday, March 18 a large audience celebrated the ’s eighty years of service to the Springfield community. Special guests included Congressman Leonard Lance who donated an American flag that flew over the United States Capitol to the Library Director Susan Permahos. Union County Freeholder Chairman Alexander Mirabella presented Library Board of Trustees President Shelley Stangler and Ms. Permahos with a resolution congratulating the library on eighty years of service. Springfield Mayor Ziad Shehady remembered how he inquired about the library before his family moved to the Township. He said that he spent many hours enjoying the library as a student and beyond. Kathleen Peiffer of the New Jersey State Library presented a gift to commemorate the milestone.

Permahos presented a Power Point presentation with a brief history of the library at its various locations over 80 years. Stangler thanked Jonathan Dayton High School student Danielle DiFiore and her teacher Steven DiGangi for Ms. DiFiore’s design of the 80-year anniversary logo that will be used throughout the year to commemorate the special occasion. Bookmarks listing the 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning books and Academy Award winning films were distributed.

A brochure with a brief history and photographs of the library was distributed as well as a mock newspaper announcing the opening of the library on March 16, 1932.