All AYEs on the Library

The AYEs were unanimous at Sherborn Annual Town Meeting on April 29, 2010, authorizing the Library to file the grant application with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) for construction funding. Fifty percent of the cost of renovating the Library may be awarded to Sherborn in a competitive grant round. The state's decision will be announced in July 2011; at that time, the MBLC will consider recommendations for funding eligible projects and votes on provisional grant awards or waiting list status.

At next April 2011 Town Meeting, Sherborn voters will have the opportunity to collectively review the Library's preliminary designs and cost estimates for updating the 40 year-old facility. Leading up to Town Meeting 2011, the Library Trustees, Friends of the Library, and Building Project Committees will work together to publicize the renovation and garner as much public participation as there is interest.

Should the Library be fortunate enough to secure the state grant funding in 2011, the Town will have the responsibility of voting to accept or refuse the award and meeting a local share of the expense. The remaining 50% of the project's cost after the state award is likely to be comprised of municipal dollars and private fund-raising proceeds.

The Friends of the Library have already made significant steps in earmarking funds for the renovation with the proceeds of their Harvest House Tours. The Library Trustees have carefully managed and grown the Library's endowment funds to be prepared to meet the associated expenses.

Many of us in Sherborn vividly remember a similar enabling vote cast in 1969, when the gift of a new Library was accepted at Town Meeting, generously funded by Richard and Mary B. Saltonstall of Farm Road's Charlescote Farm. At that time, the Dowse Memorial Library was a 55 year-old building and additions and renovations to that 1914 building had long been proposed. When Mr. and Mrs. Saltonstall chose to retire, they asked their neighbors what kind of lasting contribution they might make to the community as an expression of the happy 50 years they spent in Sherborn raising their children, farming, governing, socializing, and planning for the Town's future. I believe it was Alvin Tyson who replied "How about a new Library?" Yet it was the involvement and vision of the citizens, the many devoted volunteers, who subsequently designed this beautiful facility and made accommodations for burgeoning services that have indeed evolved over these four decades.

The effort was intergenerational and that result is evident in the gathering of ages that the space forms. The aesthetic is an indoor-outdoor quality that allows readers to enjoy the landscape and be warmed by a surrounding of natural light. Though it is time for the building to change, to be rearranged and enlarged, these are values that have not changed and we will bring these values forward with us.