To the Editor:
I’m delighted about the design for the new Edgartown Library, which provides for both children and adults. In this new building we’ll be able, for the first time, to have programs for kids without impinging on the adults who want it quiet. We’ll also be able, for the first time, to have adult programs without having to close the Children’s Room to children, which is what happens now.
The Children’s Room will be on the first floor of the new building, right inside the entrance. Adults won’t have the sound of running feet overhead, because kids won’t have to go through the building to get to their space. Adults will have twice the room they had before — quiet and removed from the children’s area. This library provides for all our users, and I love that.
We’ve been losing patrons in Edgartown over the years because they can’t get to the library, and they can’t park. For most people, this new location will be so much better. And perhaps we can persuade the VTA to route its in-town shuttle service so it helps Chappy people get to the new library.
I’ve been a librarian here since 1977, and recently I realized there have been only three years, in all my time here, when we didn’t have water leaking into the Children’s Room. I recently had a patron, who is a local daycare provider, tell me that she knows other daycare providers who don’t come to programs here because the building is so dilapidated. Twice, for six months, we have had to condense or move to cope with old building woes. I think the children of Edgartown deserve so much better.
I also remembered how we used to joke that someday most of my “library kids” would someday be Edgartown voters. Now that has come true. Not many weeks go by when I don’t have parents come in who were my library kids once, bringing their own children to introduce them to me and let them share our library. They deserve a great space to come to.
I know how important libraries can be to the kids who don’t entirely fit in. Sometimes the library is the only safe place for a unique child. I also know that children who hang out at the library are often the children who are on the honor roll, even if they are doing nothing academic when they are here.
If having kids hang out at the library after school gets them in here so they’re comfortable when they have to pick out a book for school — how great is that? This library will give kids another option. After school, they can go to the Boys and Girls Club and run around and get their exercise. But if they need a little help, we’ll be right here.
Deborah Maclnnis,
Children’s Librarian and Assistant Director,
Edgartown Public Library