A Few Minutes With…Kathleen Melgar

I think that one of the things that we have struggled with is that, you know, people don’t know. A lot of people come in and they don’t even know that the library was here. They’ve lived in the community for many years and they had no idea that the library existed.

My name is Kathleen Melgar and I’m the director here at the Asbury Park Public Library.

We are on the corner of First and Grand here in Asbury Park, right next to a lot of great spaces here. We have a park right across the street and we’re kind of nook in between two of the churches, local churches here.

The history started in 1878. It was actually a, uh, association library and it was a private library that was started by Helen Bradley. And the land, um, was donated by James Bradley. Um, they started construction but they didn’t finish. And I think sometime in 1901, the city took it over and it became a public library.

So we have a very, I would say a unique building. Um, we have beautiful stained glass windows in the main space. We used to have a long time ago, a big tower, but unfortunately it was taken down, um, just ’cause of construction issues. The main floor is just has this like very old tiny feel. We have this like green color throughout the building mixed in with the hardwood.

I think it’s really important now more than ever is we wanna be here to support the community as a whole. And we’re really looking at building up these relationships, working with different organizations, working with different groups in town. One that we have been working well with is, um, with the school district. This year we have been working closely with, um, ECAC, which is the Early Childhood Advisory Council.

What’s been challenging is that, you know, sometimes people have this idea of like the library being just this traditional space, just a place where people come sit, read and access computers and that’s it. But you need people and you need people that feel that they want to be involved in the community that wanna put the time and effort.

Throughout the years that I’ve taken over as a director, it’s really trying to build a good team that believes in my vision and wants to be involved in the community.
I think that our role is really to be, you know, like the community connector.

I guess one example would be we’re working with the Robert Wood Johnson. Um, they’re doing a communities that care initiative with the school district and one of the things that came back as feedback from the group is that people just don’t know what resources are out there. We’re working to see if we could build a community resource website that could direct people to these resources and we would be managing it long term.

I would like people to know that the library has really changed over the last couple years. Like, um, we are a space that is really more open and welcoming when it comes to programming, to ideas, to, um, supporting different initiatives like that. This is a place that you could come to, you could feel welcome, you can find the resources that you need. If you can’t, we have people that are more than willing to help you that can sit with you and work with you.

I think right now I really am looking forward to us re-envisioning the actual space of the library, especially downstairs in the junior room. Now that we have a lot more kids coming in after school, we have a big rush. So we are looking at how we can, um, upgrade and renovate everything, freshen up the actual space inside, but we always need, you know, money and support for that.

So, as far as like being involved and helping, one of the things that we have been dreaming about, which we just haven’t been able to really get started up again, is our friends group that you need people in the community that believe in the library, believe in the work that we do to be out advocating for the library, visit the library, get a library card.

We have a lot of like new services, so we have free streaming services that you could get with your library card.

We have a lot of good programs that you can get involved with.

Or if you’re interested in starting like a club or a program, you know, we have staff that can help with that too.

But you know, just to come in and, and visit the space, see what we’re working on and get involved really, that would be great.