WHAT DID THE COLLEGE STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT TRANSPARENCY AT THE JONES LIBRARY TRUSTEE MEETING?

Report from the Jones Library Feasibility and Design Trustee Subcommittee (9-12-19)

The Jones Trustee subcommittee charged with overseeing the re-design of the possible library demolition/expansion project met Thursday, September 12, to discuss priorities it will present to Feingold Alexander Architects (FAA). The redesign has been mandated by the state (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, MBLC) in order to receive any funding and must include moving the Large Meeting Room to the basement level.

Trustee President Austin Sarat said that the committee should articulate what the re-design should include. Committee member Lorin Starr suggested, in an email, that they committee prioritize their top ten goals for the new plan. 

As the meeting was called to order, three others joined me as public observers. Two were young women who seemed to me to be college students. They began to take copious notes, one on her cell phone with lightning pianist fingers, the other using a traditional paper pad, pen whipping across the page.

The latter student accurately drew a “map” of the room, with four tables arranged in a square with a circle for each committee member. As usual at these meetings, there were no name tags, so she placed a number in each circle to help her notetaking. One committee member had her back to the public, a formation that makes it very difficult for the public to hear. (Microphones are rarely, if ever, used during Jones’s meetings.) 

In addition to problems with auditory input, the public must unravel what the committee is discussing without any visual references. Unlike the Town Council, for example, the Jones Library does not usually provide a printed agenda or printed handouts. Agendas are posted on the website, but packets are missing (packets are not posted after the meeting either) and there is no large screen in the room to project the documents being discussed. 

I was curious about how the students might research background information on the Jones Library website when, as of 9/13/19, twenty-two out of forty-two meetings of the trustees (since 1/1/19) have been neither written nor posted. There is a section on the Jones Building Project, but it has not been updated in about two years.

A further deficiency is that Jones Trustee meetings are not videotaped by Amherst Media, although Town Council and School Committee meetings usually are. 

So I wondered, How could the students understand what is going on?

I’ve been following the Jones Library project for three years and know that the Jones recently contracted with the architects for a $41,000 re-design and conceptual cost estimate for the $38.5 million proposed plan, which would total some $50 million counting interest. Moving the approximately 2,200-square-foot Large Meeting Room will necessitate re-organizing most of the rooms in the four-floor library. 

The meeting began. Concerns were deliberated from the top down, literally—that is, from the third floor to the basement. Sarat asked Director Sharon Sharry what the professional staff thought. Sharry had met with them, providing drawings and Post-it notes representing each program (for example, Children, Teens, ESL, etc.) and had asked for suggestions about where each program should be located. She said that staff preferences were not related to square footage in the Library’s building program or plan, which the MBLC had accepted, since it is the job of the architects to figure out what will fit where. The building program represents the Trustees’ choices of how many square feet to devote to each Library function.

Other Trustee considerations arose, such as historic preservation. Trustee Alex Lefebvre noted that the Library is waiting for a professional Historic Structures report and the committee does not know the historic value of various parts of the building. 

I know that a report on the historic aspects of the building was required by the Massachusetts Historic Commission (MHC) both in the Trustees’ contract with the MBLC for a $50,000 planning and design grant and in a request to Town Manager with a copy to the Jones Director dated December 2016 .  It has not yet been completed.  The MHC must approve a building plan involving any state grant for the Jones because it is on the National and State Registers of Historic Places.

Sustainability was also voiced as a concern by the committee, although it had not been a goal during the 2016-’17 MBLC application process, and the Trustees had not applied for a Green Library Initiative grant, losing, permanently, up to $450,000 in reimbursement for energy-saving programs. 

Sarat mentioned that the architects should explore the costs of net-zero energy, as well as lesser energy efficient possibilities. Lefebvre asked if the committee could wait four to six more weeks so that experts who volunteered for the newly-formed Sustainability Committee could weigh in. 

Oh, how are our students doing with their notes? I’m on page six of my lined notepad, pencil tip dull.

The issue of increased staffing for the proposed expansion was also voiced. Sharry said that the new $450,000 RFID system (Radio Frequency Identification) would mean that no additional staff would be needed because books would be automatically checked in, sorted, and transported with conveyor belts to different parts of the library. George Hicks, Maintenance Director, said that in his opinion additional staff will be necessary due to the increased size of the building. 

Numerous other topics mentioned by the end of the meeting included whether or not the library would have a large secondary entrance in the back  to provide access to the Large Meeting Room, whether the historic front staircase would stay or be removed because it creates a “pinch” point entering the front lobby, how the library would apply for those “historic tax credits” (available only to for-profit buildings) and how the project should be presented (marketed) to the public. 

Whew!

With the long grocery list of issues and no top ten priority list, committee member Joan Temkin stated, “We don’t need a design that creates more controversy.” 

As the meeting concluded, I asked the students if they were here for a class.  

“Yes,” one responded. “It’s called Community Participation.”