Letter: Expanded Jones Is Way Out of Step With The Future
Entrance to the new addition of the North Amherst Library. The library will be open 20 hours /week while the Jones Library is closed for renovations. Photo: Janet Keller
I have written in your pages that the demolition and rebuilding of Amherst’s Jones Library is based on a design that is already out-of-date. The COVID pandemic changed how we create, store and retrieve information. The number of in-person visitors to the Jones each year has declined from about 325,000 to 175,000.
Now that the Jones is closed for rebuilding, the opportunities to use its satellite branches in North and South Amherst reinforce my argument.
Each of those branches is open just five days a week, and for an average of 4 hours a day. North Amherst is closed Sunday and Thursday. Munson in South Amherst is closed Sunday and Friday. The number of hours each is open is just 20 hours a week.
With such limited in-person access, the Jones will be training Amherst residents to find other ways to access the information they seek, essentially, how to find that information online. What they learn will mean that for some of them, and for some of the things they seek, they will find that they don’t need to go in person to the new, much larger Jones once it’s reopened. That will be more evidence that the designers of the new Jones are way out of step with the storage and retrieval of information now and in the days ahead. And that the excessive cost of this project will be an unnecessary burden on Amherst residents for years to come.
Ken Rosenthal
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.
Thanks, Ken. I could not agree more. The library’s expansion was always unnecessary and its exorbitant cost will affect the quality of life in Amherst for years to come. Last week we went out to dinner in downtown Amherst. On the way, we drove on numerous pot-hole strewn streets, drove past downtown Main Street shops with peeling paint down to bare wood, before parking in the rundown municipal parking lot behind CVS. As I glanced over at the back of Jones Library, the brick addition could be glimpsed through the canopy of tall trees and reached via meandering stone walkways. It was sad to know that soon the bricks and metal roof will become 1,600+ tons of demolition debris to be carted off to landfills. It was bitterly ironic to note that Amherst could not afford to rebuild this brick addition or its metal roof with a 50-100 year lifespan at today’s construction prices and that it will be replaced at a cost of $50 million by an oversized, generic, big-box-style building constructed with siding that needs to be repainted every 10-15 years. I glanced over at the building next door, the Strong House History Museum and wondered if this 1750s building with a dry-stone foundation will survive the massive demotion next door. If the Strong House Museum proves not strong enough, Amherst will lose a significant piece of its history. As we walked to the restaurant, across the street was the newest eatery, brought to us by the developer that one could argue is single-handedly destroying the character of our downtown. It should be apparent that Amherst has a history of making bad decisions (such as building two open-classroom elementary schools, using the same design because it was considered to be cheaper) then regretting the decision for decades. It also should be apparent that Amherst is governed by some of the smartest people who continue to make dumb decisions based on misguided priorities that serve the interest of the university and an elite group of developers in town. We’ll all be watching and hoping that the folly of this project and the dire economics of the Trump regime doesn’t leave us with a gaping hole where the heart of Jones Library used to be.
Fantastic that was amazing well said.