It looked just like its suburban counterparts, said Cream, after whom a Camden elementary school has already been named.
"Now it's a library," she said.
The county Library Commission voted in January to absorb Camden's main library and two branches after the city cut their funding more than 57 percent.
The small Fairview branch, which was shut in September, has remained closed, and the large downtown library on Federal Street was shuttered in February. The county took on the Ferry Avenue branch, built in 2005, and revamped it.
The building was put up with $4 million of taxpayers' money, Cream said.
When the county stepped in, a manual ledger system was still in place to track books, said Linda Devlin, director of the Camden County Library System. The last round of book purchases was in 2007, she said.
Since then, library staff has put bar codes on close to 30,000 books and entered them into an online system. It has also replenished collections and brought in new volumes, including Spanish-language titles and books with Christian and urban themes, to appeal to neighborhood residents, Devlin said.
"Each branch is a different community. . . . Our services are tailored," she said.
Camden residents will pay a new library tax of 4 cents per $100 of assessed property value. A family with a home worth $100,000 would pay $40 per year.
To accommodate former patrons of the Federal Street collection, the lower level of Rutgers-Camden's Paul Robeson Library will be converted into a public library, Freeholder Ian K. Leonard said.
The 5,000-square-foot facility at Third and Cooper Streets, which will have its own entrance, is expected to be completed by the fall, Leonard said.
The Ferry Avenue branch is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Contact staff writer Claudia Vargas at 856-779-3917 or cvargas@phillynews.com. 
