Library News

Happy June, Montague!

There are only three weeks to go before Montague voters determine whether to move forward with the Main Library Building Project or to maintain the status quo.

Montague’s town administration, the Library Trustees, The Friends, the Library Building Steering Committee, and I have been working on this project since January, 2023. Since then, we wrote a letter of intent and visited new and improved libraries in nearby communities. We conducted surveys, focus groups, and even library design activities for kids. We presented over a dozen times—to the Capital Improvement Committee, the Selectboard, the Finance Committee, Town Meeting, and the public. We compiled and submitted an 80-page application to the state and kept our fingers crossed for nine months, hoping to be accepted in the state’s competitive library construction grant program. After finding out that our project would move forward, we hit the ground running by putting together the Library Building Steering Committee, hiring an Owners Project Manager (OPM) and an architectural firm, and meeting with them weekly to hammer out the details of this design.

It’s been quite a road but it has been worth it. I firmly believe that Montague deserves a main library that is accessible for every resident and meets the needs of the community. What would this new library provide? Space for children to play, to develop fundamental social, emotional, and behavioral skills, to foster curiosity and a love of learning. Space where adults—and especially seniors—can gather, read the paper, and attend programs as varied as book clubs, yoga, local history lectures, movie screenings, crafts, and author talks. Space where anyone who needs can access computers, scanners, tech help, genealogy research assistance, local history materials, and book recommendations. Collections that inspire and entertain and allow folks to save money by borrowing a power washer, a stand mixer, bicycles, museum passes, snowshoes, and lawn games instead of buying them. Space for teens to hang out, do homework, and figure out what kind of adult they want to be.

Communities flourish when neighbors get to know neighbors, when teens have a safe place to go after school, when children and their caregivers have access to early literacy resources, and when seniors are not left behind but are welcomed and engaged. While the last few months have been some of the most challenging of my career, I maintain a lot of hope for this community and for this project. Please consider voting on June 24^th.

Happy reading,

Caitlin

To access the June 2026 newsletter as a PDF, click here.