Red Bank's public library celebrates a century in the borough

RED BANK – The borough’s public library turns 100 next January.

Its kickoff celebration on Friday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. will celebrate when the ballot measure to create Red Bank Public Library was passed by a 2-to-1 margin, according to Eleni Glykis, Library Director, and Barbara Pickell, Library Historian, by email.

Red Bank Mayor Archibald Miller had put the question to voters 100 years ago as New Jersey public libraries are formed by referendum, Glykis and Pickell said.

According to a press release, the kickoff celebration will double as a fundraiser with tickets that can be purchased on the library’s website costing $75. The event will include speakers, raffles, music and food.

“By creating a free public library, the citizens of Red Bank made a definitive statement that they wanted everyone, not just those who could afford it, to have access to the resources a library could provide,” the press release says.

According to Glykis and Pickell, Red Bank’s first library was opened in 1878. However, it’s subscription service cost $1.50 or $46 in today’s dollars and only allowed patrons to check out one book at a time.

Then on January 2, 1924 the library became a free public library for all residents of Red Bank, Glykis and Pickell wrote. The library moved to a number of locations.

It moved to its current location in 1937, Glykis and Pickell wrote. The public library was the home of Sigmund and Bertha Eisner, whose great-grandson Michael Eisner, was the CEO of The Walt Disney Company. Sigmund Eisner was a prominent garment manufacturer in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

After Sigmund died in 1925 and his wife Bertha Eisner died in 1936, their three surviving sons H. Raymond, J. Lester and Monroe Eisner had to decide what to do with the home, Glykis and Pickell wrote. They had all graduated from Harvard and thought of donating it to the university to establish an endowment in their parent’s name. They also had an offer to sell it. But instead, they decided to donate the home to the borough. In January 1937, the brothers presented the deed to the borough’s governing body and the borough council unanimously accepted the gift by resolution.

Red Bank Public Library is also known as the Eisner Memorial Library.

Since its early days as a public place to borrow books, it has become a resource center with free services and programs for the community at large, Glykis and Pickell wrote.

In the past two years, the library has hosted health and wellness programs such as Friday Dance Fitness classes, children programing including the Reading, Activity and Discovery lab and community conservations such as Let’s Talk About Race, Glykis and Pickell wrote. The library also hosts driver education classes in Spanish for the borough’s Latino community.

And it has computers, a 24-hour locker for early morning or late night pickups of on hold items and free packets of seeds for patrons to grow their own gardens, Glykis and Pickell wrote.

They wrote that, in the next year, a number of special events will be rolled out to celebrate the library’s centennial.

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com. 

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Red Bank Public Library turns 100, celebrates with fundraiser