Northeast Branch History

Planning began for the Northeast Branch in 1991. The county purchased a building on Route 46 in Independence Township and hired the architectural firm Tylman R. Moon and Associates to design the library. During the renovation of the former auto-body shop, staff was hired and furniture, computers, supplies, videos, periodicals and books were ordered. The library borrowed space in the Vo-Tech Administration Building (affectionately called  The Dungeon) and the tedious process of preparing 20,000 items for the new library began.

We encountered a few delays due to contractor problems and a dispute about who we could buy shelving from, but by January of 1993 the building was ready. The Northeast staff spent all of January placing our collection on the shelves and preparing for our grand opening. The Northeast Branch opened for business on February 1st 1993. The new library was met with great enthusiasm right from the beginning and by the end of the first year of operation we had almost 5,000 card holding patrons, and a circulation total of over 100,000 items.

In November 2009, the Warren County Freeholders purchased the Best Fruit Farm Building as the future home of the branch. After a year of renovations, in May 2010, staff and a group of 153 volunteers moved the branch to our new location. The new facility has become a community center with its meeting rooms, public access computers, and quiet reading area.

Over the years our collection has more than doubled and the staff has increased from 5 to 14 to better serve our ever increasing number of library patrons. We have expanded our collection to include Music CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray DVDs, Console Games (including Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 games), Playaways, and access to the Internet , and ebooks. We strive to offer programs of interest to both children and adults as well as being a focal point for community interaction.