Opinion: Library Leaks Are Evidence Of Longterm Neglect And Failure Of Management
Photo: flckr.com. Creative Commons
The storm last Saturday that dropped two inches of rain on Amherst caused inconvenience for many, and more consequential problems for some. Amherst’s Jones Library is in the latter camp. Serious leaks caused flooding that resulted in its Monday morning opening being postponed.
The Library’s leadership is now using that unfortunate circumstance as additional evidence that their plans to renovate and expand the building must be adopted. Those plans, already estimated to cost much more than originally proposed, are likely to be either totally unaffordable or approved at a level that will badly distort the Town’s finances. What Saturday’s unfortunate leaks demonstrate, however, is less the need for renovation and expansion and instead the neglect of ordinary and regular maintenance.
The Library’s prepared Sunday statement said “…..[t]he atrium, part of the 1993 addition to the library, has been problematic for much of its lifespan. Despite repeated repair attempts, the leaking atrium threatens building integrity.” It is often difficult to merge two rooflines; every architect and builder knows that. The joint can be susceptible to different coefficients of expansion where two dissimilar materials meet. Because this happens with some frequency, there are solutions that will work in almost every case. That for much of the last 30 years the library’s leadership has been unable to find such a solution is a failure of its management as much as it is a failure of the design of the 1993 addition.
In their statement Library Director Sharon Sharry also said that “…..because the sprinkler pipes have surpassed their useable life, a large pipe in the basement burst…..” This may be an even more troubling admission of neglect. Sprinkler system pipes are there to protect against fire, which could happen at any time. If she knew the sprinkler system pipes “have surpassed their usable life”, how could she fail to have them replaced? Even if all is going as planned for that renovation, it is years away from completion. So, how long has she known those pipes “have surpassed their usable life”? For as long as she has known, Director Sharry has left the library at risk of fire and has been negligent in not having those sprinkler pipes replaced. (It looks like she’ll have to do so now.)
Trustees President Austin Sarat said “This incident underscores the urgent need to renovate.” Unfortunately, what “this incident” underscores is that the library’s leadership has not been capable of normal facilities management. The Library’s leadership will be using “this incident” to argue for the completion of their current plans for expansion. Instead they should accept, now, the reality so many of us have been urging upon them, and plan to renovate the existing structure to a design standard that the people of Amherst can afford, and will be happy to use.
Ken Rosenthal lives on Sunset Avenue in Amherst. He was Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals and of the former Development and Industrial Commission, and was a member of the Select Committee on Goals for Amherst. He was a founder of Hampshire College and its first Chief Financial Officer.
I think the library just can’t witness, and became exhausted from the endless debate and massive estimates ,and made its own statement about politics and money, more than showing its condition, and if I read correctly, it was the newer addition that failed . If buildings could speak, well it did and also many locations had rain related failures.
Kris Jackson
If your roof leaks, would you tear down your house? If your plumbing leaks, would you tear down your house? In the case of Jones Library, it has been known for more than a DECADE that the atrium leaks. So, replace the atrium. How many of us would allow our roof to leak for YEARS, while we wait for a larger house to replace the existing one? This failure to do timely repairs is especially irresponsible considering this “house” stores books and irreplaceable historical documents. Apparently, it has been known that plumbing pipes for fire suppression have reached their life-span, so why have the pipes not been replaced? It is disingenuous for Library Trustee, Austin Sarat to use these leaks as a rationale for a LARGER building. For those of us who have been following the Jones Library demolition-expansion plan since the beginning, the one consistent theme has been the neglect and failure to maintain the Jones Library building as problems arise. It is confounding that despite poor building management and oversight of basics such as cleaning and regular repairs, the Library Director has earned high marks year after year. One example of building neglect, paint around the Jones front door was peeling and flaking off and was discovered to be lead-based paint. Patrons, including young children, were allowed to pass through the front doorway day after day. Members of the community drew attention to the hazard of flaking lead-based paint, but more than a year passed before the peeling paint was repaired. Some have questioned whether allowing the building to become “shabby” has been a marketing strategy to help raise donations for the expansion. In recent years, the already-large Jones Library building has operated at a $100,000 annual deficit, but Library Trustees continue to stubbornly assert the need for a larger building. In what universe does it make sense to secure a larger building to be managed by those who fail to do basic maintenance and repair on their existing building and operate at a deficit? The Jones Library deserves to have a Library Director that does the job of caring for the town gem and Trustees who can set their big egos aside and do what’s right for the patrons they serve. What’s right in this case is to pivot to what the town can afford, that is Plan B, a full renovation of Jones Library within the existing building footprint.
In response to Peggy, the whole point of the renovation and expansion is to serve the public better, in both traditional and new ways. I urge any reader to go to the library website to review the exhaustive amount of work that has gone into the project.
The fact is that the Jones can’t do all that it should in the current facility. The recent $1 million NEH challenge grant will help create a much better setting for special collections, the Burnett Gallery, ESL space and much more. In my opinion, we should take great pride in the fact that so much effort to create a better Jones is being recognized by local supporters, as well as town, state and federal funders. And, thanks to the Herculean fund raising initiative, our community is going to get an incredible facility using a majority of outside of Town of Amherst funding. That’s pretty awesome. This is a project that will serve today’s children and families and many generations to come.
I know I am very proud of the efforts that continue to go into bringing this project to fruition, and look forward to the day when the Jones can serve everyone in the community.
And I am happy to say that I and FDA, continue to work diligently to help raise resources for this invaluable project.
Lastly, if folks want to see a great, brand new library to get a sense of what the Jones will become, pop on up to Greenfield to see their new building. It’s great! Happy to have worked on that project too!
Jones Library leaders are quick to throw darts at the atrium because it serves to justify their wasteful proposal to tear down and replace the 1993 addition built at a cost of $5 million. However, it is not clear that the glass roof, prized by patrons for its feeling of openness and the natural light it lets in, is a problem. Library Building and Facilities Committee discussions have focused on leaks occurring at the seams where the original building joins both the glass and metal roofs of the new addition. It doesn’t appear that due diligence has been done to determine the most cost effective way to fix the leaking roof junctions.
The fact is that atriums are featured in many of the country’s most celebrated libraries. The much admired Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Boston Public Libraries all boast glass atriums, as does the Bibliotecha Alexandrina built to revive the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And at least two library renovations designed by Finegold Alexander Architects — Holyoke and Stoughton — feature glass atriums.
It is unknown whether the glass atrium in the 1993 brick addition needs to be replaced or simply repaired to stop leaks, but given a marketing strategy to allow the building to become shabby through neglect and deferred maintenance, it is doubtful these alternatives for the atrium were ever explored. There are photos of buckets sitting under the atrium to catch leaks. Not many organizations that store a fragile collection, such as books and documents, would simply ignore a problem leak for years, but neglect makes sense if the visibility of buckets under a leak helps to build a case for demolition and justify expanding the size of the building. The brick addition was just 23 years old when demolition was first proposed, and as Jeff Lee noted in another Indy article, the Jones Library Director expressed her intent to expand the size of the building from her earliest days of taking over management. Similarly, there were photos of electrical outlets with numerous extension cords featured in the building plan documents, suggesting this issue was another reason to tear down the brick addition, despite the fact that hiring an electrician to install more outlets and upgrading the electrical panel would have been a low cost solution. Was a professional ever hired to assess the leaking atrium? Did an electrician ever provide an estimate for adding electrical outlets and upgrading the electrical panel? If pursued, these relatively lower-cost repairs and upgrades would risk undermining the argument that demolition-expansion made sense. There’s no mystery why neglect and deferred maintenance of the Jones Library has gone on for so long.
From 2009 – 2012, I was a Jones Library Trustee. The Atrium roof had reportedly been leaking for all of its two or so decades. It certainly was leaking then. We Trustees accordingly had it caulked. This cost some $40,000. The fix was but temporary.
An Amherst architect explained: those delightful Atrium fluted pillars encase the pipes that drain the Atrium roof, and those pipes are too narrow. If this indeed is a factor in the leakage, our increasingly dire climate will only worsen the leakage unless new, larger pipes are installed — or, of course, unless the Library’s always overlarge, and now badly overbudget, demolition-expansion project demolishes the Atrium completely.
If fiscal sanity prevails, however, may I put in a plea to preserve those little Atrium pillar rosettes? They are a characteristic Connecticut Valley domestic architectural detail, and original Jones Library architect Allen Howard Cox was exquisitely sensitive to Valley architectural tradition.