Pestilence and Renaissance: Jersey City Style
Jersey City Free Public Library, N.J.
Innovation Synopsis
The Jersey City Free Public Library entered 2020 with promise: a newly-appointed director, Jeffrey Trzeciak, and the blossoming of an ambitious strategic plan; this promise grew into a steely resolve to provide services, programs and information to patrons in the midst of a viral pandemic and subsequent economic crisis and social upheaval.
Challenge/Opportunity
Implementing a strategic plan is difficult. Tackling it with aplomb while navigating the sudden need to operate in a virtual world, to ally with the community against racism and its systemic roots, to provide educational opportunities for patrons of all ages and to aid the economically disadvantaged is a task of another order of magnitude altogether. This situation created an opportunity for the JCFPL to test new objectives while providing services, programming and entertainment to the members of the community.
Key Elements of Innovation
The development of a strategic plan, grounded in community involvement, focused JCFPL’s attention on issues affecting the lives of Jersey City residents. The library created nearly 20 teams of diverse and knowledgeable staff to implement goals in advocacy, racial equity, lifelong learning and diversity as well as steward and curate library resources. JCFPL leadership provided agency to the library staff to develop ideas and address, via online platforms, problems of inclusion, racial justice and social equity.
Achieved Outcomes
The Jersey City Free Public Library is an organization evolving with the times. In establishing a strategic plan to address social issues and measurable goals, the JCFPL initiated structural changes to align the library with a set of values collectively agreed upon by the library personnel and communities they serve. This strategic direction allows the JCFPL to adapt to unimagined difficulties in order to ensure total commitment to the community and the ideals entrusted to the organization.
