OPINION: THE FUTURE OF THE JONES LIBRARY
Jones Library. Photo Wikimedia Commons.
I love the Jones Library. I would love to be a supporter of its plans for renovation and expansion, but right now I am not. As I have written elsewhere, a major part of my opposition is the thought of another outsized building downtown that is oblivious to its relationship to the streetscape and street life around it. The town’s enthusiasm for “in-fill,” and its understanding of “density” are distressing to me. I am not opposed to larger buildings per se but the thuggishness of Boltwood Place, Kendrick Place and One East Pleasant Street are blots on Amherst Center for generations hence. The early meetings I attended about the library’s plans were not at all reassuring that an enlarged Jones would be of a size and scale commensurate with its surroundings.
The Library Trustees seem determined to apply to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) for funding support, and the MBLC has very clear criteria for awarding grants to local libraries. These criteria are formula-based and use square feet as the common metric for determining how large the library should be. According to the MBLC, the Jones should have a total of about 65,000 square feet. (It currently claims to have 48,000 square feet, but usage of that space is constrained by the unwieldy design of the interior.) So if we want to get state money we have to have a larger library. Actually, I would support a larger library plant – one that has more space for the staff, for programs, for an auditorium, for more flexible uses by the community. I think the library needs all these things – but not at its current site.
Fortunately, a perfect site will be available in a few years – Wildwood School. The town appears to support the School Committee’s plan for a new elementary school, so when that school is built, Wildwood will be decommissioned. What would the Wildwood site offer the town as the site of its main library? First, it is big enough to meet all of the library’s stated needs, with much room left over. (The Wildwood specs say that it is over 80,000 square feet.) Possibly Wildwood could accommodate the library and the senior center both, and I am a great fan of intergenerational use and programs.
Second, it offers a lot of free, safe, on-site parking. Current library patrons can testify to the insufficiency, and even danger, of the town lot across Main Street and the CVS lot behind the library. Patrons, especially families and the elderly, would appreciate having safe, on-site parking.
Third, Widwood is on one floor. There would be no need for staircases or elevators.
Fourth, students in the middle school and high school could easily walk to the library. I understand that this may not be a source of joy for everyone but if the library’s current hopes for a teen center were realized at the Wildwood space, I bet we would discover that coexistence is possible.
There would, of course, be issues to be solved with the physical plant, furnishings, and site. A committee would have to be established by the Trustees and the Town to flesh out possible scenarios and deal with known issues. But I am confident that the total cost of creating the main town library at Wildwood would be much smaller than the current estimated cost of renovating and expanding the current Jones site.
And what would happen with the current Jones building? There are many possibilities. It could become a downtown branch of the main library, like North Amherst and Munson. I’m sure other programs and agencies would clamor for space in the building. But my dream calls for the Jones Library to be joined to the Simeon Strong House as the home of the Amherst Historical Society and Museum, just as some years ago The Dickinson Homestead and The Evergreens, as well as the historic gardens were joined under the umbrella of the Emily Dickinson Museum. I would love to see a collaboration between the town and the Historical Society to maintain and actively use both buildings and the grounds in between. The unique Special Collections now housed at the Jones would stay there with enhanced facilities for scholars and other visitors. And, important to me and others, the aesthetics and scale of that block of Amity Street would be preserved. The South facade of the Jones would be maintained. The green lawn in front of the Strong House would still feed our spirits.
If something like this seems like a plausible future for the town, several steps would have to be taken very soon. First, the Trustees would have to withdraw from the MBLC funding program and timetable. This is a desirable step in any case, since the amount of state funding would probably not be large enough to avoid a debt-exclusion override. (The library is seeking private support for its plans as well.) I am uneasy with the MBLC’s imperious approach to library planning as well as the metrics and formulae they use to justify it. I would be glad to see Amherst out of the program.
Second, the Town and the Trustees would have to agree to take the library project off the table until the other three capital projects are funded and built. I think there would be a great sigh of relief throughout the town if this were to happen, and perhaps even a sigh of relief from the Trustees, since the likelihood of town funding for the library’s current plans is dubious under the current timetable and set of assumptions.
Third, the condition of Wildwood School would have to be ascertained as a site for a library and other possible programs. I have not mentioned the Fort River School as a site for the main library because its location is less desirable. However, its specs are identical to Wildwood, and because there is still interest in maintaining it as a school, there is more current information about its condition.
Of course there would be problems – financial, legal, physical. We would have to work with the PVTA to provide bus service to the new main library. But before we say “no” too quickly, let’s imagine the possibilities. They excite me, and I am eager to know how other residents feel about them.
Brilliant, Michael!
And imagine “chamber music under glass” in the atrium of the Jones Academy of Music!
I would oppose using Wildwood School as a library. I would oppose using Wildwood School for just about anything other than recycled building material. I think it’s a charmless, hideous building and a blight on the landscape. (My daughters attended elementary school in that building, but I have not a shred of nostalgia for it.)
Perhaps I am a little selfish because I live downtown, but I think libraries should be located downtown, within walking/biking/transit distance of where most people live. Wildwood is located not-too-far from a few people, but most patrons would need to drive to the building. And frankly, I’m tired of hearing about “convenient parking”: Some of my earliest public library experiences were at the Brooklyn Public Library which had zero convenient parking. (Maybe I should return to Brooklyn; too bad it’s become prohibitively expensive.)
That said, what we do need in Amherst is a parking deck in the lot behind CVS and St. Brigid’s. We need a bigger, better-designed library, too, but it does not need to be a hulking big monument to excess. I’d rather see some of the money put toward mobile public libraries, about which I have written elsewhere.
Alex, thanks for your comments. I largely agree with your opinion about Wildwood as a physical plant, especially if one must spend six + hours a day in it. But I am not sure that it might not work for the kind of usage a library gets, especially since it is well-located for the Middle and High Schools. And the older I get the less I pooh-pooh convenient parking!
Michael
No consideration for the Library’s hard-working staff, who will definitely be in the Library 6+ hours a day?
Ruth, I think the library staff would be very happy in a Wildwood setting – much more room, suitable offices and processing space, no elevators. And my audacious vision is sharing that space with the Senior Center – providing an ambience that is intergenerational and programmatically diverse. Such a setting would be miles away from the Wildwood School in which both children and their teachers had to endure an interior space both physically and acoustically stressful. Which they have done heroically for fifty years.
The Amherst Town Council has not made a decision regarding the acceptance of the grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for the renovation and addition of the Jones Library. The award will not be official until July 1, 2020. No decision will be made until after that time. The Amherst Town Council has also NOT made a decision as to IF, and therefore WHEN, we would authorize placing an override question on a ballot regarding any of the Four Major Capital Investments including the Jones Library
Thank you, Lynn, for your clarifying comment.
Michael
Whether the proposed library expansion project would be funded by a debt exclusion override (DEO) or directly from capital reserves, the money to pay for it comes from Amherst taxpayers. If the Town Council decided to avoid putting it to a direct vote by the people by not calling for a (DEO) and instead used capital reserves, it would still affect our ability to pay for the many other capital projects that need to be addressed (school, fire station, DPW, athletic fields, senior center, fire suppression systems for the middle and high schools, etc.), and let’s not forget about roads and sidewalks.
There are well over $200 million of capital needs and Amherst residents can assume that property taxes will increase by 2.5% per year regardless. The Town Manager has made it clear that there will be at least one or two DEOs that will increase taxes ON TOP OF THAT with the largest annual increases in the first years, then tapering down over the next 20-30 years.
We need to rank ALL of our capital needs, something the Town Council, Joint Capital Planning Committee, and Finance Committee have yet to do. We simply can’t afford to do everything and some things will need to be dropped or significantly scaled back. How they are prioritized should be based on the will of the people and take into account their ability to afford to live here. Our representatives should find out what the priorities of the residents are before making decisions in our name. Maybe we can “vote them out” if they don’t let us weigh in with a debt exclusion override vote, but the damage will already have been done if they authorize an expensive project before we get to the polls.