N.J. Libraries Find Their Tipping Points
with Help from Grants

Retired East Brunswick (N.J.) Public Library Director Sharon Karmazin found the marketing ideas in a bestselling book so compelling that she sent copies to every public library in New Jersey and started a grant program to fund ideas inspired by it.

Karmazin’s North Brunswick–based Karma Foundation has awarded $91,000 to 21 libraries in the state that came up with proposals based on Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (Little, Brown, 2000), according to the February 22 Newark Star-Ledger. Gladwell’s “tipping points” are those moments when small trends spill over to create a massive change. “Use the thinking in the book to create something new,” Karmazin urged. “Don’t just give us something you wanted to do anyway.”

Among the projects funded were:

• $1,300 to the Roselle Free Public Library for town-wide directional signs because the building faced a side street, was surrounded by shrubbery, and no one seemed to know where it was;
• $5,000 to the Berkeley Heights Free Public Library to buy e-books for middle-school children;
• $2,500 to the Dunellen Free Public Library to teach seniors to surf the Internet; and
• $5,000 to the New Jersey Library Association for a leadership training program.

The effort was so successful that Karmazin will be offering another round of grants next year.

Dunellen Director William Robins told the Star-Ledger, “This is the first time in my 20-year career that I have seen a foundation develop such an intriguing approach to helping libraries and their patrons.”

Posted February 26, 2001.