Opinion: Will Taxpayers Inherit the Jones Library Debt?

When does reality become too obvious to ignore? 

From what I remember, the Jones Library Capital Campaign claimed that it would be in a “silent phase” of fundraising for an initial period.  It was alleged that this was how major campaigns were typically run. The “public phase” would begin when the project actually broke ground, and that, it was claimed, would also be the moment when the floodgates would open, and donations would come pouring in. That doesn’t seem to have happened.  It also seems to have coincided with the start of a paucity of substantive financial updates from the trustees. Such silence often indicates a shortfall in the ambitious goals set by fundraisers, rather than success.

Contrast this with the campaign for the new Greenfield library – a $20 million project, which had a $2 million fundraising goal. After seven years, the goal was surpassed, bringing in $2.3 million from over 1000 community members, a little over 10% of the total project cost. 

And how has Amherst fared?  According to the most recent full accounting that I could find (April 2025), Amherst had technically reached that goal by raising $4,882,845 in community contributions. The problem is that only $2,380,360 (5% of the total project cost) of that amount had been received as of that date; more than $2.5 million is listed as “Gift Intentions (pledges).”

Some of those pledges have likely been converted to cash donations, but it is impossible to know how much. Recent reports (for example, one from July 2026) now list the Community Campaign as including “Government Grants, Corporate and Foundation Giving,” thus making it difficult to know exactly how much funding support has come from community members. And the news that donors have been given up to five years to make good on their pledges does not inspire overwhelming confidence that such funds will actually materialize. Likewise, recent public accounting of fundraising from the trustees does not inspire confidence. Figures do not add up, amounts switch columns and categories, and the big picture of what has actually come in and what remains to be raised shifts, depending on who presents the information. Questions go unanswered or get vague replies, and new can’t-miss-this-time strategies roll out. An atmosphere of mostly rosy optimism still issues forth from trustee meetings. 

If this were a $4.6 million project, such hopefulness might be excused. But in the context of a $46 million one, it seems fairly clear that the Jones campaign has counted on community support that has not, and very well may not, materialize in the amount that they had hoped.  What is becoming increasingly clear is that the pain from this overreach will now be shared by the Amherst community at large. 

Denise Barberet lived in Amherst for 34 years and is now a resident of Chicopee, where a new 34,000 SF public library was opened in 2004.  Its cost was $9.3 million.  It is centrally located, with plenty of parking, and though it is new, it feels like a lovely old library.