GOSHEN — Keith Wright visits the library every Wednesday or Saturday to pick up books from his favorite genre: mystery thrillers. But that habit didn’t begin until 2023, when the Goshen Public Library joined the CW MARS network, a shared system of more than 150 public, academic and special libraries.
The person responsible for the transition was Julie Cavacco, who retired at the end of June as director of the library. Maeve Melnick succeeded her July 1.
“I never came before that,” Wright, the town’s newest Select Board member, said on a recent Saturday morning as he checked out a book, explaining that he now has access to books from libraries across central and western Massachusetts. “There’s always a good book I can find here — I try to keep a pipeline of books going.”
Joining the CW MARS network did more than expand access to books. Under state law, Goshen’s library would have been forced to close if it had not joined the certified library network in 2023.
Cavacco’s accomplishments during her three years leading the library were recognized during a coffee-and-cake reception on June 28 hosted by the Library Board of Trustees.
Board of Trustees Chair Andrew Watt said that under Cavacco, “we have joined CW MARS, we’ve completely updated the collection. We’ve gotten some new furniture that enables us to open up the space for programming and for events in the library. We have done a substantial amount of outreach to the Goshen-Chesterfield school, which has been without a librarian for a long time, and helped kids to understand that reading is an important part of education.”
Closing his remarks, Watt said, “Please make a point of going up to Julie at some point today and say something nice and wonderful about all the great work she has done.”
A Deerfield resident, Cavacco served as director of the Deerfield Library for 21 years before stepping down in 2021. She brought that experience — along with her expertise in children’s literature and library data — to help bring Goshen’s library up to date.
For Cavacco, libraries are about community.
“I moved like five times between third grade and 10th grade, and when you spend those five summers alone, you really realize that community is important,” she said, adding that she plans to continue filling shifts at local libraries whenever help is needed.
Addressing the trustees, Cavacco joked, “I do think it’s a really great time to hand it over to someone who can clean up my desktop or delete some of the endless emails I get, because they’re younger.”
Melnick, also a Deerfield resident who previously worked at the Deerfield Library, holds a master’s degree in library science. She said her role is increasingly about connecting people with accurate information in the age of artificial intelligence.
“It’s really about accessing correct information, and being able to disseminate that to somebody who needs it — so it’s learning how to answer any question that comes in,” she said. “Google isn’t even Google anymore, it’s AI summaries, so it really is about just helping people find the information that they need and making sure that it’s clear and valid and honest.”
