Jones Library: Amherst's living room. Strong House back left
Library Director Sharon Sharry gave the local media a guided tour of the flagship Jones Library last week in the hopes of dispelling rumors that have been circulating lately about the much anticipated renovation/expansion of the 57,000 square foot icon that anchors the downtown.
The building was last renovated/expanded back in 1992 so it is now eligible for grant funding by the state that will cover roughly 50% of the entire project, preliminarily guesstimated at $10 million.
Unlike the renovation of 23 years ago this time around the entire contents of the Jones Library -- 172,000 books, videos and CDs, the entire 28,000 items in Special Collections, and 20+ banker's boxes of financial records -- will be moved into an interim operating space.
The project could take up to two years but since an architect has not yet been chosen it's unknown how large the building expansion will be.
Either way, parking is a major issue that needs addressing. The formula the state uses is one parking space per 400 square feet of building. Thus, just the current foot print of the building would require 143 spaces for patrons. And at the moment the Jones Library has but 2 handicapped and 7 "employee only" parking spaces.
The other major issue that could scuttle public support for the project (Town Meeting) is the fate of the greenery behind the Jones and the side garden currently owned by the Strong House, which could soon be sold to facilitate the expansion.
Since neither the Library or Strong House are contemplating any construction in their front yards the only place left for an increase in footprint for the Jones is either directly behind or to the side of the Strong House, both of which are now occupied by greenery.
But Library Director Sharon Sharry was adamant that whichever garden requires eviction it will be replicated elsewhere on the property, something that is commonly approved by Conservation Commissions when a construction project endangers wetlands.
In this digital age it's tempting to think of libraries as antiquated as, say, newspapers.
But the Jones Library has kept pace with changing technology, offering audio and books on tape for a generation now, DVDs and of course in-house computers for the general public.
The current crop of 20 computers for adults and 4 for children is too few, and the space too limiting.
The Children's Room is also too tiny, the shelving too tall and materials are spread out over three floors. And like the rest of the Library, bad sight lines keep employees from being able to monitor the big picture.
The Library added security cameras two years ago as a safety feature trying to keep down inappropriate sexual activity by teens and the occasional criminal act (drug use or stealing of library materials) but by and large have not been overly successful.
The Jones offers a bevy of "non traditional" services found only in Amherst: An English as a Second Language program that will someday seamlessly connect to The Literacy Project (assisting patrons to acquire a GED).
Hwei-Ling Greeey acts as a 'Social Worker in Residence' helping to deal with Amherst's homeless population. While the 'Artists in Residence' program allows the general public to interact with artists to better understand the creative process.
The Special Collections Department is world renowned for their priceless collection of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost materials. And the Burnett Gallery offers space for local artists to display the fruits of their labor.
On average the Jones hosts 1,000 unique visitors per day and circulates as much material as the BIG city library in Springfield. Yet the only check out location is cramped and can be staffed by -- at most -- two employees.
Library Director Sharon Sharry laments no staffed receiving area for incoming customers after first entering main door
Unlike the renovation of 23 years ago this time around the entire contents of the Jones Library -- 172,000 books, videos and CDs, the entire 28,000 items in Special Collections, and 20+ banker's boxes of financial records -- will be moved into an interim operating space.
The project could take up to two years but since an architect has not yet been chosen it's unknown how large the building expansion will be.
Employee parking is cramped and results in "dings" from other vehicles looking for parking
Only 2 handicapped spaces are provided
Either way, parking is a major issue that needs addressing. The formula the state uses is one parking space per 400 square feet of building. Thus, just the current foot print of the building would require 143 spaces for patrons. And at the moment the Jones Library has but 2 handicapped and 7 "employee only" parking spaces.
CVS & town parking lot next door
The other major issue that could scuttle public support for the project (Town Meeting) is the fate of the greenery behind the Jones and the side garden currently owned by the Strong House, which could soon be sold to facilitate the expansion.
Kinsey Memorial Gardens behind the Jones
Strong House garden to the rear of the Library
But Library Director Sharon Sharry was adamant that whichever garden requires eviction it will be replicated elsewhere on the property, something that is commonly approved by Conservation Commissions when a construction project endangers wetlands.
Adult and Children's computers are in separate rooms
Children have 4 computers and 2 game stations
In this digital age it's tempting to think of libraries as antiquated as, say, newspapers.
But the Jones Library has kept pace with changing technology, offering audio and books on tape for a generation now, DVDs and of course in-house computers for the general public.
The current crop of 20 computers for adults and 4 for children is too few, and the space too limiting.
Children's Room
Cameras are more reactive than proactive
The Library added security cameras two years ago as a safety feature trying to keep down inappropriate sexual activity by teens and the occasional criminal act (drug use or stealing of library materials) but by and large have not been overly successful.
The Jones offers a bevy of "non traditional" services found only in Amherst: An English as a Second Language program that will someday seamlessly connect to The Literacy Project (assisting patrons to acquire a GED).
Hwei-Ling Greeey acts as a 'Social Worker in Residence' helping to deal with Amherst's homeless population. While the 'Artists in Residence' program allows the general public to interact with artists to better understand the creative process.
The Special Collections Department is world renowned for their priceless collection of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost materials. And the Burnett Gallery offers space for local artists to display the fruits of their labor.
Archive materials stored under a sprinkler head
Whether the expansion project is approved by the Mass Board of Library Commissioners and then Amherst Town Meeting or not, the aging infrastructure will still require extensive improvements -- especially the 30 year old Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning system.
The pretty glass atrium installed in the 1992 renovation never worked properly and continues to leak during a rainstorm or in the winter when snow accumulates. Just these two items alone cost close to $1 million and would be entirely town money.
Atrium is leaky and allows in too much sunlight
In addition to the Jones Library expansion three other major building projects are now in the pipeline: The Wildwood Elementary School project, the forever talked about new South Fire Station and a new Department of Public Works building.
Both the Library and School projects have the distinct advantage of state reimbursements. All the more reason town officials need to promote all four of these vital upcoming building projects as an all-or-nothing package.
24 comments:
I worked at the Jones Library when the renovation and addition project that included the atrium was done. There were always problems with the atrium, and even the expansion done at the time was soon insufficient to support the needs of the community.
Amherst Community Connections and Jones Library have been in collaboration since 2012. I am the staff person from ACC stationing at the Jones Library providing info/referral on housing, employment, benefits application on food stamps, free cell phone, etc. I work in the capacity as a human service advocate. We have other volunteers stationing there as well from time to them. They are also advocates and work in similar capacity. We are at the Library on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Walk-ins are welcome!
That parking requirement is absurd, considering it abutting a parking lot and and has not one, but two across the street, if you could the Bank of America lot that can be used after banking hours and on Sundays. You also have both sides of the street with metered parking. You would have to pave every bit of green space to get even a fraction of that number of spaces. Let's get real. I just don't know how you can publish such nonsense. Don't you have eyes? Try zooming out with your drone.
I don't make the rules, I just report them.
You're allowed to ask questions, such as "do the surrounding parking spaces count?"
I have trouble understanding the expansion part of this. The Jones wants to preserve its small garden so it wants to take over the small garden at the Strong House--the only original house and lot in downtown Amherst? And then use that garden for more parking or expansion? Why not use up its own garden first? Why not make an arrangement with the the church or Amherst College to use some parking spaces for staff or rent some from the underground town lot? Wouldn't that be cheaper? The Jones space is poorly configured so it needs to expand? Why not reconfigure it's own space better? Why not stick to its knitting and cut out the Burnett gallery? Or skip having a cafe. Isn't there one across the street? Do we need more computers? Why not get some IPads and save space? Is it really a problem to have kids books on 3 floors? We all seemed to have survived that problem for years. We live in a planet with a global climate crisis and the response to a space problem is to build it bigger every time?
When I read comments like Anon 7:59 am, I have to ask: isn't a little early to get all liquored up?
Enough with the overreacting.
Methinks the override won't be approved.
So the Jones will want $5 million from taxpayers, or more, knowing the usual cost overruns. How about they take the front two rooms which for years they've barely utilized, and put computers in those spaces? How about they add computers at all the cubbies throughout the library that don't currently have them. Just because you make the place larger doesn't mean you will get more patrons. Better to use the space they already have more efficiently. Seems like they've got a very expensive wishlist. $5 million is a lot of money to ask for, so you get books on lower shelf in the children's room! We could just build a few step stools to boost kids up for a fraction of that.
I don't know how many people realize this, but any Massachusetts resident (that includes Amherst residents) have full access to the 26 story UMass library -- and unlike at similar land-grant universities in Vermont & Maine -- for free.
And Amherst is the only community I know of where the free WiFi (usually only available inside the public library) extends throughout all of downtown. Hence there isn't the pressing need to provide more space for laptop/smartphone users that other libraries currently face.
Personally, I like the Jones Library the way it is. I like the fact that you are walking into what still feels like a historical mansion, I like the entryway the way it is and haven't personally seen any problems caused by it.
If there are problems, then have a police officer standing there. Two or three if necessary, perhaps even a solid wall of blue until whatever problem(s), perceived or real, are abated.
Direct the Chief to readjust his officer allocations so as to arrest a few less UM Students for noise/ETOH and instead arrest the creeps & perps who are preventing everyone else from enjoying what is a nice little library.
And if there really is a need (and not just desire) for a bigger library, then build a branch as part of the badly-needed South Amherst Fire Station.
$5 million will not be a lot for the Jones Library because it will be someone else's money. Yours.
Speaking of the Children's Room, along with both serving Teenaged Patrons and problems caused by said Teenagers -- I have never quite understood why we have both school libraries and a municipal library, each with it own physical space, staff and administrative bureaucracy to serve the same people!
Taxpayers are essentially paying twice for two library systems that are essentially competing with each other to serve the same children & young adults. It truly seems to be a waste to have a library downtown that they can't use during school hours and a library in their school which they can only use during and immediately after school.
Yes, the redundancy of separate spaces/collections may be necessary, given our current "Chicken Little" hysteria mentality --> and our paranoid delusion that a "school shooter" is hiding behind every third tree, with a child molester hiding behind the other two...
But if we have to waste money to provide the same age-appropriate space and collections to the same groups of children in multiple venues, why do we need redundant experts maintaining a collection at all developmental levels? Why do we need duplicate staff as well?
A good child/youth librarian not only knows (and maintains an awareness of) literature that is at the median reading ability for one or more developmental levels but also for the outliers -- those whose reading ability is considerably above or below their chronological/developmental ages.
For example, pre-puberty, one can't understand the emptiness conveyed in Brave New World even if one is able to read and comprehend the actual text. Conversely, and far more often, there are those whose reading ability is far below both their developmental and chronological ages -- the challenge is to find something mature enough for them which doesn't vastly exceed their reading ability.
Like I said, Librarians able to do this are a valuable resource, as are financial resources in general and it seems a terrible waste to impose this redundancy.
And as to those teenagers who cause problems in the library -- well if Enku Gelaye can punish students for what they do downtown, why can't Team Maria?
Thank you for reminding me of another peeve--why aren't the middle school and high school libraries open all afternoon so students can read, research and study with help from librarians. My schools did this.
Um, because we can't have grizzled homeless people hanging out at the school library. Duh!
Anon 4:59 pm:
I think it would be great too if the elementary school libraries were open more (for example after school) for students & families to use. From what I hear, they used to be open more, before I had kids in the school,but now with the buildings having more limited & controlled access, families don't visit them as much. That's too bad; they are great libraries.
I like the way that Pelham does it. The Pelham Library serves both the town & the school.
I think that some renovations of the Jones Library to better use the existing spaces would be great. I am not at all convinced that an expansion is necessary:57,000 square feet seems like a good size. If the library doesn't expand, just do some major renovations, hopefully the cost would be less than $10 million, right?
As busy as some parts of the library are, there are other parts that seem pretty underutilized, including most of the lower level stacks & the large print books on the first floor (aren't kindles, etc. rendering many large print books obsolete?).
I hope there is a way to waive some of the required parking spaces. In a town center with lots of other parking nearby, & with good walkability & mass transit, requiring close to 150 parking spaces seems unreasonable & not the best use of downtown land.
what does local zoning require for parking of such a building? maybe that could be the standard here instead.
Since the Jones is in the Municipal Parking District the town bylaw would require zero parking. But the state grant requirements trump that.
This project will have very little oversight from anyone other than the library trustees. I hope we elected a good group of them.
Where 'free money' is involved you can bet any approvals will sail through town meeting.
I have to agree that as much as I love and use the Jones, the space is not well utilized. As other have said, there are a lot of empty spaces. The library has no need to be a gallery space, a cafe, etc. leave that to the private sector.
What they really need is some architectural consulting on layout, use efficiency, some re-design, streamlining, and a reality check on some of the very outdated, underutilized material they are sitting on.
"Um, because we can't have grizzled homeless people hanging out at the school library."
Ummm -- Exactly how many "Grizzled Homeless Middle & High School Students" are there in the first place?
Let me clarify something here -- "Young Adult" is a more sensitive term for "Teenagers" which itself a more sensitive term for "Older Children" -- with the gender-specific versions being "Boys" & "Girls." The nice thing about the term "Young Adults" is that as "Young" modifies "Adults", the term specifies a specific type of adult.
In other words, as all "Young Adults" are inherently "Adults", it is not unreasonable to ask them to act like adults. But they don't, and they aren't -- and this is where we loose the boys in reading ability -- the NAEP shows a clear and significant gender gap in all language/literacy areas, one which is larger than the rapidly narrowing female gap in STEM areas.
"The average Black Male High School GRADUATE has the reading & writing ability of the average White 7th Grade Female -- that's both scary and wrong.
Two Black liquor store owners in DC once told me that they'd love to "hire guys from the neighborhood" (i.e. young Black men) but "they can't do anything" "all they can do is pick up boxes and set them down somewhere else." "They somehow think that the beer cooler refills itself." These were businessmen, they needed people who could do inventories, do orders, run the register, answer the telephone "in something resembling coherent English", and "tell customers how to get back to their hotel without using obscenities." So while they wanted to hire young Black men "to give them a chance like we were given", they instead had to hire GW Students -- and as GW had a big game that night, they had to work instead.
We can talk racism all we want to -- Young Black Men aren't going to get private sector jobs if they can't do the things that the private sector employer needs them to do. Never forget that for every Black Man in College, there are two Black Women...
So, I was talking about having the school libraries available TO THE STUDENTS WHO ARE ATTENDING THE SCHOOLS -- and something developmentally appropriate for a 16-year-old probably isn't going to be of interest to the "grizzled" mentally-ill drug-addict that is of concern.
Although why is that person in either library -- if he/she/it is using the library appropriately and the issue is merely that of being "grizzled" and "homeless", then this is bigotry no different than objecting to -- say -- a Lesbian Couple being in the library. Or someone of another race.
HOWEVER, if the person isn't there to use the library for what it is intended to be used for -- well, perhaps such persons can be addressed in the same manner as UMass Students are...
"From what I hear, they used to be open more, before I had kids in the school,but now with the buildings having more limited & controlled access, families don't visit them as much. That's too bad; they are great libraries."
There is a larger point here: THEY DON'T WANT PARENTS IN THE SCHOOL! That's all this security stuff is all about -- a combination of teacher/staff ego inflation and "bunker mentality" -- although it is the parents who are the perceived threat, not any school shooter or child molester.
Reality is that the greatest threat is already in the building. It's not the "stranger" who is a threat to your child but a fellow student -- school shootings are perpetrated by students. Ask any cop, off the record, about some of the things that high school (and middle school) students have done, or are suspected of having done. Remember how a Math Teacher was murdered by her own student in (memory is) Topsfield a couple years ago?
If parents have access, parents can see/hear/notice things, and that can lead to parents complaining about things. That's what is behind all of this -- while I personally would never have a problem with a (non-disruptive) parent sitting in the back of my classroom -- and lots of times would have loved to have a row of them across the back of a classroom, this is the ultimate nightmare of most teachers.
It (increasingly) is an "us versus them" mentality with teachers and admin often aware of how loud parents would be screaming if they were to know about things that the school would much rather they not know about.
There is no reason why an Elementary School Library can not be staffed nights and/or weekends by parental volunteers -- with the extra cleaning likewise being done by parents as well. None except for union contracts that mandate this not be done, that instead there be overtime to unit members, along with the basic fact that parents in the building would inevitably hear and see things that Team Maria doesn't want anyone to know about...
We don't need libraries anymore since we are headed the way of HG Wells Eloi. All knowledge will be on little shiny spinning discs which we will have forgotten how to use until someone from the past shows up and tells us. Come to think of it those shiny disks are already a thing of the past. So go ahead and feed us to the Morlocks.
I still don't understand why the grant would require so many dedicated parking spaces for a library in a downtown area. Hasn't this grant been used for libraries in downtowns before, where there is other parking nearby, as is the case here too? The idea of having to spend library construction grant money to create 100+ parking spaces (more than the Amherst "parking garage", yes?) does not seem like a good use of either the grant money or of valuable downtown property.
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