AMHERST — Two longtime patrons of the Jones Library who say they recognize its central place in the life of the Amherst community are interested in filling a vacancy on its board of trustees.
Lee Edwards, of Wildwood Lane, and Kitty Axelson-Berry, of Stony Hill Road, are the only applicants seeking to replace Jonathan McCabe, who resigned in July, on the six-member board.
The Select Board and remaining trustees on Monday will interview both candidates and then vote to name a new trustee who will serve until the town election in March. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at Town Room at Town Hall.
A 46-year-resident of the area, Axelson-Berry, 67, is a former editor in chief of the Valley Advocate and owns Modern Memoirs Inc., a writing and publishing service specializing in personal memoirs and family histories.
“I love the Jones Library and want it to serve the community in the best way possible,” Axelson-Berry said in a telephone interview Friday.
Her three daughters all used the library while growing up and she sees Jones as a place for networking and community engagement.
Axelson-Berry said due diligence needs to continue with the proposed expansion and renovation of the Amity Street building.
“The process of library renovation and expansion needs to be understandable and transparent,” she said, adding that she supports “practical, user-friendly ways to update and grow the building and its functions in a way that supports multi-class participation now and in the future.”
Axelson-Berry said that any project should maintain the warm atmosphere and do so with fiscal restraint and progressive principles.
“The design of the building should be as progressive as the thinking in Amherst is,” she added.
A 20-year resident of Amherst, Edwards, 74, isprofessor emeritus of English and former dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, and serves on a committee that assists with the library’s annual Sammy recognition awards.
Edwards could not be reached for comment Friday.
In her letter of interest, Edwards wrote that she has greatly benefited from the materials and services offered by the Jones Library.
“I have lived in the Amherst area for most of my adult life, and in Amherst itself for the last 20 years, during all of which time I’ve been proud to be a card-carrying member of the library,” Edwards wrote.
She said she appreciates the library is extending its focus beyond the card catalog and print and embracing new media and varied technologies.
“It cannot be easy to accommodate these ongoing changes. But it must be particularly challenging to accommodate them while also fulfilling an increasingly diverse community’s evolving needs for programs and resources that go well beyond the traditional provision of materials for borrowing,” Edwards wrote.
As a dean, Edwards said she prepared budgets, and recognizes the need for the Jones to find new sources of revenue to support ongoing enterprises and underwrite new projects.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
