By Stephen Appezzato
RUMSON – With just a library card, area residents can now access a powerful financial tool at the Oceanic Free Library – a Bloomberg Terminal.
Following fundraising efforts, the library, located on Avenue of Two Rivers, obtained Bloomberg Terminal access for public use, offering library cardholders exclusive in-depth financial data, market news, analyses and more.
The computer workstation provides users “a whole lot of financial data; it’s proprietary to Bloomberg, and it delivers all kinds of financial news (and) financial analysis from Bloomberg reporters,” explained library board member Teresa Sperber, who helped bring terminal access to the library.
After logging on, users can access “1,000-plus external news sources,” covering financial and legal analyses “all through this one terminal,” Sperber said. “There’s so much to it.”
Those working in the finance field understand the significance of the terminal. According to Investopedia, as of 2025, a single annual subscription to a Bloomberg Terminal can cost more than $25,000. With the hefty price of entry, the terminals are often sequestered among institutional investors and financial firms and out of reach for most individual users.
Broader Access
With the library’s two-year access, students, job seekers, independent investors, researchers or anyone interested can now access the powerful tool for far less than a normal subscription fee. Those who live, work or attend school in Rumson can present their personal, work or school ID to the library for free access, while other members of the public need only obtain a library card for $35 a year to use the terminal.
“An RFH teacher can come over and use the Bloomberg Terminal, or anyone that works in Rumson,” Sperber said. “If you’re an RFH student residing in Fair Haven, you can bring in your school ID and we’re going to give you access to the terminal. We want to really promote our library use for all people.”
The Oceanic Free Library’s new initiative started last spring when library leadership began researching Bloomberg Terminal access.
“We started to see Bloomberg labs cropping up in private schools in the area,” Sperber said. And, when college students returned to the area on break, some wished to pursue their Bloomberg certificate for their resumes.
“It led us to an interesting point that there’s not a lot of public access to Bloomberg unless you work for a company that has Bloomberg, or if you are part of a high school campus or a college campus that has Bloomberg, and we thought this is a great opportunity for the library to provide an amazing financial resource,” Sperber said.
In December, the library launched a free trial of the workstation, gauging the public’s response.
“Anyone that came in, we handed them a survey and we checked off their age, they checked off what they were using it for, whether or not they liked it,” Sperber said. “We got incredible feedback from the community about how useful it was and how they were thrilled that people had access to this incredible technology through the library.”
Career Networking
The range of Bloomberg Terminal users at the library varied across age, careers and demographics. “Some of our first users who came in were people who lost their jobs. And to us, that was like, ‘Wow, this is something that’s really helping people,’ ” and leveling the job search playing field. Thousands of jobs in the financial sphere are listed on the Bloomberg Terminal, as well as in-depth networking information.
“You can put in the town you live in and where you went to college or high school, and you can find out who’s working at each company and their contact information. So that’s very valuable if you’re looking for a job,” Sperber said. “We’re helping provide a strong collection of information for our patrons and promoting library use for all, and that was really important for us.”
The Oceanic Free Library is one of New Jersey’s only privately funded public libraries. Its money comes mostly from donations from patrons and the community. The library’s fundraising efforts and operating budget cover its two-year access to the terminal.
“We have a community that is incredibly supportive of the library and we’re very confident that the community is going to support the Bloomberg (Terminal) based upon all the feedback we got,” Sperber said. “It’s a big commitment, but we’re confident that our fundraising will support it.”
The article originally appeared in the April 10 – 16, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
