First, I love libraries and I particularly love our Amherst Town Library.
Most weeks, I visit the Amherst library 3 or 4 times and Wadleigh in Milford at least once, and sometimes the library in Bedford. All are part of the GMILCS system, so nearly everything in their collections, along with those of the others in the system forms a good range of materials. Not just books, but video and audio discs, Playaway devices, and some newspapers and magazines.
One thing different about the Wadleigh and Bedford libraries are the 3-D printers singing away as they lay down plastic layers to build up various objects. A few years ago, the Amherst library had a 3-D printing initiative that I was a part of. The idea was that, instead of library staff helping patrons do 3-D prints, we would have a team of volunteers training the community in how to use 3-D printers. At that stage, 3-D printers were very finicky beasts, requiring lots and lots of patience and willingness to diagnose the many problems that would mess up prints. Ultimately, the initiative fizzled out.
Lately, people have been asking about AI applications and wondering how they will affect us as citizens and the library as an institution. In my opinion, the current versions of AI are in their infancy as a technology. Predicting where they will lead is difficult. I have personally used an AI app to (1) create a picture (a moose wearing an orange hat); (2) converting a script written in Perl computer language to Python language which, after careful checking, worked well; (3)Using ChatGPT to write award scripts for FTC robotics competitions, enabling us to meet the tight deadlines on announcing awards.
At one of the candidate forums, I was asked about my stance on “book bans”. My immediate reply was that book bans are a bad thing, a stance that I believe is shared by the great majority of librarians and library trustees. Most often, they are attempts by some citizens to restrict the access that other citizens have to works that might be considered controversial. Sometimes, they are an attempt to extend a personal definition of pornography to works that the society at large does not consider to be obscene. The library has procedures to handle book challenges; we certainly want to hear what patrons have to say about material in the collection and will work to correct situations where inappropriate material – when considered against the acquisition policy – should be removed or reclassified.
Last year, after the election, the trustees asked if I would be interested in becoming an Alternate Trustee. The board recommends and the Board of Selectmen appoints, for a one-year term, alternate trustees. I’ve been serving that way for most of 2025 and have plunged into the New Hampshire Library Trustee Association’s convention, training, and regional gatherings, as well as attending nearly all of the monthly trustee meetings. In completing last August’s Library Hop, I visited nearly all of the GMILCS member libraries. It has been an education about what is involved with being a library trustee and I’ve come to a new appreciation of the role the Friends of the Library.