In 1920 legislative enactment allowed New Jersey counties to establish county library systems and in Ocean County residents voted to create a free county library in November 1924. At that moment, Ocean County joined only four other counties in the new plan for New Jersey library service.
The Ocean County Board of Chosen Commissioners quickly appointed the first five members of the Ocean County Library Commission in early 1925 and the real planning began. The system needed people and Miss Elizabeth Wurts was hired as the first librarian at an annual salary of $2,000.
On September 19, 1925 the Ocean County Library opened its doors to the public from a small cottage known as the Lonan Building on the grounds of the County Courthouse. The small library cottage was open to the public only one day a week while a Model T paneled truck (purchased for $997) brought library service to a rural county of 28,000. It stopped at thirty-two schools and twenty-three "stations," i.e. post offices, stores, and enclosed porches of private homes.
As Ocean County’s population grew, so did the library system. As the years went by independent municipal libraries joined the county system and brand new branches were built in towns that had never had their own libraries.
The first branch of the library system opened in Long Beach Island in 1956 in a room inside the Long Beach Township Municipal Building. Due to the hard work of the Friends of the Island Library Association, money was raised to build a new LBI library building that opened January 16, 1960. The Friends were responsible for the mortgage and maintenance of the new building and grounds while the library system provided the books and the staff. The next branch was in Brick in 1965.
The first independent town library that joined the county library system became the Point Pleasant Beach Branch. While always located in Point Pleasant Beach, when the library was founded in June 1894 it was known as Point Pleasant Library. This was long before the area of Brick known as West Point Pleasant was incorporated as Point Pleasant Borough in 1920. The library became the Point Pleasant Beach Branch in 1967. Tuckerton, Dover Township, Point Pleasant Beach, and Lakewood were independent municipal libraries before joining the county library system.
