Braswell Memorial Public Library has been awarded a $20,000 grant to develop selected areas of the adult non-fiction collection.

Braswell Memorial Library provides free public library services to the residents of Nash and Edgecombe Counties, and has about 43,000 adult card holders.

The federal Library Services and Technology Act funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services were awarded by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

These federal funds are investments of dollars to help libraries deliver relevant and up-to-date services for their communities.

At Braswell Memorial Library, the grant will be used to purchase new books and DVDs in the areas of biographies/history, hobbies, health/wellness, religion/spirituality/self-help, travel/foreign languages, education/careers, science/math, and real estate/investment/finance. The library will match the $20,000 grant with $5,000 of its own money.

Upon learning that Braswell Memorial Library received the federal grant, Library Director Jane Blackburn said, “The library has had less money in the recent past for buying books, and our emptier-than-usual bookshelves show it. This grant will help us replenish our collection with the best and most current books and DVDs in areas that library users identified as most important to them.”

Braswell Memorial Library received one of the 112 competitive grants of fiscal year 2011-2012 awarded to North Carolina libraries from this year’s federal allotment of $4,160,471.

The State Library of North Carolina administers the LSTA grant program, which receives its funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.