Hadley Library Posts Record 3,000 Monthly Visits, Braces for Jones Library Overflow

HADLEY -- May 13, 2025, Hadley Library logs its first-ever month above 3,000 patron visits as the Jones Library closes. Library Director Patrick told trustees at the May 13 meeting that the record figure is tied in part to Amherst residents already seeking alternatives before the Jones Library shuttered this week for an approximately 18-month renovation, and he warned the library is "bracing for the onslaught" with a staff already stretched thin by absences. Town meeting, held weeks earlier, did not fund any new library positions, leaving the board to weigh drawing on the Charlotte Smith endowment to hire a part-time desk staffer for a one-year bridge term, with a goal of folding the role into the permanent budget at the next opportunity. A Massachusetts Cultural Council grant application is also pending, with results expected in September. On a lighter note, youth services coordinator Emily secured the library a spot as one of roughly four libraries statewide, and the only one in Western Massachusetts, to host a Boston Bruins celebrity story time in July as part of the MBLC summer reading program.