Williamstown Library Director Retires With Laurels
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — It won't be easy for the next director of the David & Joyce Milne Public Library to write the sequel to Pat MacLeod's tenure.
MacLeod, leaving after 25 years, has accomplished much during her tenure, having brought the library online, completed multiple phases of building remodeling, adjusting library services and collections to meet changing needs and compensating library staff with salaries that were woefully out of line with the rest of the town's.
"It was like a forgotten stepchild," she said of the library when she came on in 1998. "There were 6-inch shelving units handed down from other libraries and the [Williams] College — shelves not wide enough to shelve many of the books properly. They were using the old card system for circulation, where the people's names who had checked out the books were right on the card in the book."
It was the turn of the 21st century and the library needed to be brought up to date with automated systems for cataloging books and circulation.
Early on, she worked with a town manager who thought the library was too big but MacLeod could always see the need and opportunity to make it bigger. Fortunately, more recent town managers have worked closely with the library board of trustees and MacLeod on many improvements, she said. Current Town Manager Robert Menicocci worked diligently with library trustees and MacLeod to ensure library staff salaries were brought into line with the rest of the town employees' salaries.
Board of Trustees Chair Micah Manary believes this final modernization of salaries is among MacLeod's greatest accomplishments. "That is her swan song. It's a huge success," he said.
MacLeod agreed, "Getting fair wages was a big deal. Working in a lovely environment doesn't make it better if wages are not fair."
Now a beloved community member and leader, MacLeod was not local when she arrived in 1998, though she had been living in Southern Vermont for several years.
Growing up with five brothers in New Jersey, she attended schools in Tennessee and Massachusetts before earning a bachelor in fine arts and then a master of library science from Rutgers University. Her career includes covering the Lake Placid Olympics for ABC Sports, a decade working with the Somerset County Library System in New Jersey and then in the State University of New York's Office of Library Services, and time spent as library liaison for Ingram Books.
When asked what has changed in the library field during the past 25 years, MacLeod pointed out "increased homelessness and other issues have made libraries official warming and cooling centers. Intellectual freedom fights are increasing. School libraries are getting so much less funding. There's a lot of fundraising to do, too. There's been an exodus of librarians leaving the field. It's an interesting time for libraries."
MacLeod has been careful to avoid controversial issues in Williamstown, noting the lawsuits brought by Richard Kreimer, a homeless man, against public and private facilities, including the Morristown, N.J., library when it barred his entrance.
A New Jersey court in 1992 found that the library violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as similar legislation at the state level. Remembering how the American Library Association, the town nor her own board had supported Morristown's librarian Barbara Rice, MacLeod has worked to ensure her library has solid, board-approved policies in place to guide library operations.
Building renovations, increased programming and focused collection development have made her tenure at the library ever-challenging, ever-changing and ultimately quite successful.
"We are well-positioned for opportunities. It's exciting we've made it to this point," said Manary. "We are reimagining the library as a place to meet, not just a bookshelf."
There's one more change library users will see, hopefully before MacLeod leaves her office for the last time. A gazebo is being installed in the courtyard, supported financially by the Friends of the Library. This will create an outdoor space for reading.
"With the right clothes, a person could enjoy the space in three seasons," she said.
MacLeod expressed gratitude for the people she's worked with, too, from staff and trustees and town managers to volunteers. The volunteers are vital to daily operations, she said, mentioned them repeatedly as she described her accomplishments and how they succeeded.
Her retirement starts on Jan. 5 and an acting director will be appointed until a new director can be hired, probably in March. Candidates for the post, all of whom are from out of town, will have preliminary interviews in December but the in-person interviews will not take place until January.
Manary said he looks forward to good community engagement and multifaceted programming to continue and grow under the future director.
As for MacLeod, she'll be reading books by day and her Kindle by night. She wishes there was a pill you could take to completely forget a really good book, so you could read it again and enjoy it for the first time again. She still has some of her books from childhood and enjoys rereading classics, but she'll be reading darker things, too — she enjoys nonfiction about disasters, Icelandic fiction and books by Jon Krakauer to name a few.
And she looks forward to this new chapter in her own story. She will be enjoying her family, her cat, and her home, as well as doing some traveling.
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