An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Article Display

JB MDL Librar-E earns federal award

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Sean M. Crowe
  • Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Public Affairs
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) recognized the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Librar-E and Resource Commons in the category of small library and information center of the year May 13, 2014, at the Library of Congress in Washington.

FEDLINK chose the LRC out of 2,000 candidates to award the library and permanently display its name in the Library of Congress citing the high-quality of information and materials available, innovation and efficiency provided to the joint base community as well as interagency cooperation.

The award presenter, FEDLINK, is an organization dedicated to managing federal libraries and resource centers and advising congress how to best allocate resources to the organizations FEDLINK serves. The organization chose the LRC for the information and programs it made available to the JB MDL community in 2013.

"The award is a great way to recognize the determination and effort our staff puts forth into making us a great library," said Linda Capraro, 87th Force Support Squadron Force Development Flight chief. "We are honored to achieve a status such as this it will be a huge honor to see our organization permanently affixed to a wall in the Library of Congress."

The LRC gained honors for catering to the military community with programs for the whole family including summer reading for children, a unique war collection with historical documentation, college level examination program study material and a First Book program which allowed children to send videos of themselves to deployed parents.

"Families are a huge focus for us," said Cirillo. "It's our job to provide them as much as possible since we are a lot closer than local libraries. We strive to give the community what they need as the only library on base and will try our hardest if we can't meet their needs."

The base library focuses on fulfilling the community's needs to harness education, promote professional development and foster an environment of learning to meet the needs of today's service members and their families.

The Librar-E routinely involves service members from all branches for reading programs as well as local agencies including Burlington County and Ocean County libraries, First Book and even the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the community with resources and programs.

JB MDL cooperated with First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides books for children in need, and Burlington County College to acquire approximately 10,000 books for JB MDL children. The Librar-E even went through the lengths of acquiring and installing new computers for the Wounded Warriors Program.

The Librar-E staff is at the forefront of innovation as they constantly transform and refresh programs, materials and technologies to the patrons at JB MDL.

"We are pushing to make our Librar-E a 21st century library," said Cirillo. "Our future developments include getting a 3D printer, our virtual knowledge website, self-service print center and a program which will incorporate local library resources to our customers. Some of the new initiatives will also benefit our ability to properly utilize our staff."

The award serves as a merit to the Librar-E employees who keep book on the shelves at the library.

"Our staff is four full-time employees and several part-time employees and they have a great amount of responsibility," said Cirillo. "We overcome the adversities with the help of our partner organizations which allow us to offer more to our community."

None of the steps the LRC takes to serve the community would be possible without the hard work and dedication the staff puts forth day in and day out. FEDLINK lauded the staff for and leadership for overcoming the gap in manpower and continue to maintain admirable service hours and quality for a federal library.