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McCann Tech teacher Scott Botto shows the trustees a display case on the second floor, made by McCann students, that displays artifacts he has found.
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The library trustees are looking for ways to advocate for the library in the community.

North Adams Librarian to Retire After 30 Years

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Longtime library employee Robin Martin intends to retire in early May, and library officials say they'll feel her absence keenly.

Not only are they losing an experienced employee of 30 years, but her departure as adult reference services librarian may lead to a cascade of staffing issues.

"She has been with the city for 30 years, and I would like to do something communitywide [to recognize her]. There are a lot of patrons who would like to honor her service," Library Director Mindy Hackner told the trustees Monday.

"I am dreading her leaving because she is the keeper of all of our institutional knowledge and she has done a superb job."

Hackner said she plans to advertise the position even though the current children's librarian is qualified. She said posting the position would be more fair and would allow her to gather a list of people interested in working at the library.

The trustees agreed to have some sort of celebration for Martin, and acknowledged that her leaving could create more staffing gaps in the library.

"I am basically taking Robin's salary and redistributing it, but I am not getting the physical body," Hackner said. "The five people that are here, if they take all of their time off, it's over half of our open hours. I don't have enough bodies to plug into the spots so if one person is out and someone has an emergency, we are down to a point where we can't operate unless we have volunteers."

She said she often has to leave volunteers running the desk, which is not fair to those giving their time to the library.

Hackner said if they use the city's figures in the budget and they move the children's librarian up, a part-time worker would be moved to that position. It would be 33.5 hours a week, which translates to a day without a children's librarian.

"It's a modest budget," Hackner said. "If you really want to play hard ball, we can go for more, but I would ask that we stay with this for now given the city's situation."

She said the library could also maintain some salaries of $10 an hour and the savings could be used to hire another part-time employee to fill in staffing gaps. She said it also would be possible to shift salaries around.

Hackner said there were also discussions about closing the library an extra day a week.

Hackner said she recently asked the mayor for an additional 15-hour-a-week employee to help stabilize the library. She said she was refused because even though the money is in the budget, it may not be in coming years and that person would have to be let go.

The trustees felt Hackner should submit a budget with the increases that would support the staffing needs.

"It seems to me we should be asking for more," Trustee Rich Remsberg said. "Every time this comes up, we spend a lot of time talking about stuff like this and it seems like those should be extreme examples not standard operation."

Hackner said she will ask but does not anticipate any a changes in funding from the city.

"This has been one of my biggest fears for the library," she said. "That it is being slowly strangled ... strangled is one word, starved is another."

Remsberg added that the library should continue to find ways to raise its own funds and to raise the library's political profile so people are aware of its value.

Hackner brought up another budget concern and explained the transformers inside the air ducts are obsolete and have to be rebuilt. Each transformer costs $150 and there are 25 in the building.

If the library has a power outage, the air ducts shut down and close and someone has to manually adjust them.

In other business, McCann Technical School teacher Scott Botto showed the trustees a display case on the second floor, made by McCann carpentry students, that displays many of the artifacts he has found throughout the community with his metal detector.

After gaining permission to display a few of his treasures, Botto organized the display and provided information on the artifacts, some going back to the 18th century.

Botto said the he often uses the library to research what he finds or to scope out new locations.

He added that he felt it was important to return history to North Adams.

"This is our history and it belongs to us," he said. "I wanted to bring it back."

Botto said he would refresh the box when he finds new objects.

The library will receive a new copy machine.

After a Xerox technician could not get the notoriously troublesome machine to work correctly, the company pledged to send a new one.

The trustees voted to change the temporary status policy for new library patrons from six months to three.

The trustees also welcomed new trustee Nicole Prokop.


Tags: NAPL,   public library,   retirement,   staffing,   

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Macksey Updates on Eagle Street Demo and Myriad City Projects

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

The back of Moderne Studio in late January. The mayor said the city had begun planning for its removal if the owner could not address the problems. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Moderne Studio building is coming down brick by brick on Eagle Street on the city's dime. 
 
Concerns over the failing structure's proximity to its neighbor — just a few feet — means the demolition underway is taking far longer than usual. It's also been delayed somewhat because of recent high winds and weather. 
 
The city had been making plans for the demolition a month ago because of the deterioration of the building, Mayor Jennifer Macksey told the City Council on Tuesday. The project was accelerated after the back of the 150-year-old structure collapsed on March 5
 
Initial estimates for demolition had been $190,000 to $210,000 and included asbestos removal. Those concerns have since been set aside after testing and the mayor believes that the demolition will be lower because it is not a hazardous site.
 
"We also had a lot of contractors who came to look at it for us to not want to touch it because of the proximity to the next building," she said. "Unfortunately time ran out on that property and we did have the building failure. 
 
"And it's an unfortunate situation. I think most of us who have lived here our whole lives and had our pictures taken there and remember being in the window so, you know, we were really hoping the building could be safe."
 
Macksey said the city had tried working with the owner, who could not find a contractor to demolish the building, "so we found one for him."
 
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