Following a vote by the Princeton Public Library’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday evening, Brett Bonfield was named to succeed Leslie Burger as the library’s executive director. Mr. Bonfield, who is currently the director of the Collingswood Public Library, will take over on January 19, 2016. Ms. Burger is retiring in January after 16 years at the library.

“Brett is a committed and experienced community builder,” said Kiki Jamieson, president of the Board. “He is an advocate for public libraries and all who use them, and I have been impressed with his deep commitment to nurturing libraries as the heart and hearth of diverse communities. I think he will build on the excellence to which we as a community have become accustomed.”

Mr. Bonfield was selected from a field of 25 candidates during a national search, which also included Canada. Assisting Library Strategies International LLC were search committee members John Anagbo, supervisor for language arts and social studies at Princeton High School; Jan Johnson, retired librarian and former head of the library’s Youth Service Department; and Jane Silverman, president of Jane Silverman and Associates and former chairperson of the Princeton Public Library Foundation.

During seven years as director in Collingswood, Mr. Bonfield led initiatives resulting in increases in community engagement, library visits, circulation, digital collections, and access to technology, according to a press release. He is co-chair of Library Pipeline, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing opportunities, funding, and services for libraries and librarians.

His past experience includes work as a reference librarian at the University of Pennsylvania and St. Joseph’s University, and as special projects librarian at the Samuel L. Paley Library at Temple University. He has served on professional councils and committees as a member of the American Library Association and the New Jersey Library Association. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Rutgers University, a master’s in library and information science from Drexel University, and studied in the doctoral program at Rutgers.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as executive director of Princeton Public Library, and I look forward to working with the library’s Board of Trustees and the extraordinarily talented staff at the library,” Mr. Bonfield said. “Building on the library’s tradition of success will require an intimate understanding of the community’s needs, and developing that understanding and putting it into practice will involve a great deal of listening, on my part, to the members of the Princeton community who love their library and care about its future.”

Mayor Liz Lempert, who is a library trustee, said of Mr. Bonfield, “He values the role of the library as a catalyst for civic engagement for everyone in our diverse community, and he is well positioned to build upon the legacy of excellence Leslie created during her tenure.”

Upon her retirement, Ms. Burger plans to turn her attention full time to Library Development Solutions, the private consulting firm she co-founded with her husband Alan in 1991.