Public Comment: Town’s Claimed Need for More Space for Jones Library is Unsupported

The following public comment was offered at the meeting of the consulting parties to the Section 106 Review of the Jones Library Expansion Project on January 27, 2025.

My comment is addressed to the massing, size, and scale of the proposed addition. The town has conceded that the addition will have an adverse effect on the Jones Library but claims that the need for more space outweighs the interest in historic preservation. That claim needs to be seriously scrutinized.

The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Rehabilitation of Historic Properties includes specific guidelines regarding additions. They say, “new additions should be considered only after it is determined that meeting specific new needs cannot be achieved by altering non-character-defining interior spaces.” The town never undertook this inquiry. When the MHC asked for the town’s alternatives analysis regarding the massing, size and scale of the addition, the town’s response was that that additional space was needed for programming. That is not a sufficient response.

A 2015 Space Planning Report conducted by the Massachusetts Library System concluded that with some specific space reassignments, the existing library would have ample room to fulfill its functions well into the future. This plan was never seriously considered.

The town’s claimed need for more space was based on a grossly inflated estimate of the library user population. The 51,000 user figure included not just the town’s 20,000 full-time residents, but also more than 20,000 University of Massachusetts and other college students who have several excellent libraries on campus and are unlikely to use the Jones Library. And the number of actual users of the Jones has decreased dramatically. MBLC statistics show that the number of annual visitors to the Jones Library has fallen from 319,000 in 2014 to 143,000 in 2023. That’s a cut of more than half in 9 years.

Compared with 47 similarly sized town libraries, the Jones has more than adequate space to serve its user population. Very few of these towns have a branch library, much less two branch libraries, or the numerous university and college libraries that Amherst has. If expanded by 12,000 sf, as planned, the Jones will dwarf its peer group.

The town may argue that it’s too late to examine the actual need for the addition. As the town was well aware, the Section 106 review should have been conducted early in the planning stages, when a cogent analysis of space and need could have been done. Because the Section 106 review is only now underway, now is the appropriate time, in fact it’s the only time, for a closer look at the town’s alternatives analysis regarding the massing, scale and size of the proposed addition.

The MHC should insist that the town demonstrate the need for the expansion before this plan goes any further. Thank you.

Mickey Rathbun is a resident of Amherst.