Native Moorestonian Steps Down from Top Library Job

The way Norma Blake sees it, a library is like a Swiss army knife—whatever you need it for, a library can do it.

Yes, the emergence of the Internet has encroached on libraries’ once-dominant status as a place to seek information (and check out popular book titles). So libraries have refocused, said Blake, New Jersey state librarian and a Moorestown resident.

“The reason libraries won’t die is that libraries are very flexible. They can move quickly to change with the changing environment,” she said. “So if the priority is building businesses right now … and if we’re having people who are out of work becoming entrepreneurs, we’re helping them.”

Blake, a  alumni who was born and bred here, will retire in July after more than 36 years in libraries, 11 of them as state librarian.

During her tenure as state librarian, Blake spearheaded the implementation of the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative (NJKI), which provides specialized databases for small businesses, researchers, students and teachers. The information available on these databases—unlike much of what’s online—is not free, she said, and is actually quite expensive.

Rather than individual libraries providing the service to their patrons, this was implemented statewide, saving New Jersey taxpayers $68.5 million compared to retail prices, according to a release from the New Jersey State Library. The project received over 15 million downloads in two years, and won the Innovation Award from the National Council of State Governments for helping New Jersey’s economy.

“It helps grow existing businesses and create businesses,” she said.

Before she began her library career, Blake was an English teacher and quickly realized “the time at school I liked best was the time I spent at the library.”

Long before that, as a child, Blake remembered relaxing on the mezzanine at the ——“reading all the teen books … I was an avid reader.”

While earning a library degree at Rutgers, she accepted a job as acting director at the South River Public Library—a job she admittedly didn’t have the experience for. Her experience working in libraries up to that point was limited to “putting magazines away when I was in junior high school,” she said. 

But she took to the job, going on to serve as library director for the Burlington County and Gloucester County library systems before taking the big job.

“I really wanted to work with people and do some kind of service,” she explained. “I just liked the idea of connecting people to things that transform people’s lives through the library.”

As state librarian, Blake transformed the lives of many library users. She led the creation of New Jersey’s first statewide marketing campaign for libraries; implemented a highly successful interlibrary loan system; developed the state’s first library web portal; provided statewide Internet access for libraries; expanded popular statewide programs for children, teens and adults; and encouraged the implementation of innovative programs and services for the blind, deaf, and physically impaired at the New Jersey State Library’s Talking Book and Braille Center, according to the release.

“She has been a great asset to the profession,” said  Director Joe Galbraith. “Her role and her advocacy will be sorely missed.”

Blake said she’s a strong supporter of the Moorestown Library, and though she declined to comment—due to restrictions associated with the nature of her job—on the municipal complex project and its implications for the library, she said she’s “really looking forward to having a new library. It’s been long since due.”

Township officials have repeatedly invoked the term “library of the future” . Blake wouldn’t say one way or the other what she thinks of the township’s plans, but explained what she thinks the libraries of the future should look like.  

“Libraries are building large flex spaces, so no matter what comes up, they have the capability to adapt,” she said. “What that capacity is used for will change with the format.”