Letter: Expanded Jones Is Way Out of Step With The Future

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in your pages that the demolition and rebuilding of Amherst’s Jones Library is based on a design that is already out-of-date.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.