The Needham Free Library Board of Trustees is tasked with developing library policies, forming goals and monitoring progress. Four candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for two three-year seats on the board. This is the first competitive race for library trustee since 2019, when four candidates ran for three open spots.
“We look to our trustees to be our eyes and ears in the community,” library director Rob MacLean said.
Their responsibilities should increase in importance in the next decade as the library plans for four major capital improvements. The first of them, if it gets the nod from May Town Meeting, would dramatically expand the teen area on the second floor.
MacLean said since the library’s reconstruction in 2005, community needs have changed and the library has taken on a much broader range of functions.
“We’re just about approaching the 20th year of our ‘new’ library,” he said. Library use has skyrocketed in recent years. MacLean reported more than a quarter of a million visits during fiscal 2023, an 11 percent increase in one year. Library programming increased 18 percent during the same time span.
At its March 11 meeting, the library board of trustees addressed items related to the budget, NPL’s holdings and the Safe Child Policy, one of more than 25 sets of policies that this board is responsible to review and revise. (https://needhamlibrary.org/about/about-us/policies/)
Candidates running for Library Trustee are incumbents Katherine Cahill Allison and Robert Petitt, and first-time candidates Vipul Bhushan and Megan Mistry.
KATHERINE “KAY” CAHILL ALLISON
For Cahill, libraries have always been special places. Her mother died when she was a child and she recalls seeking solace at the library. “It was a place that felt safe. It was a place I could explore the world from inside a book,” she said.
Cahill, a semiretired journalist, has served two terms on the library Board of Trustees. “When I came on the board virtually everyone had been there for decades,” she said. She lived in Needham as a youngster, moved away and has been back in town since 1989.
For six years, Cahill has also served as a Town Meeting member from Precinct E.
She describes the public library as a rapidly evolving entity. “If you look at it in the macro sense,” she said, “our biggest accomplishment is the transition of the public library over the last decade. It used to be a place where there was just books and information on shelves. The digital world has upended the whole purpose of the public library system.
“The library now is really more of a community center,” Cahill said. “It’s no longer a place where you have to sit quietly and the librarian shushes you.
“The teens come over in droves after school. They’ve spread out across the whole second floor,” Cahill said. In her opinion, renovation plans are in line with the changing role of the library.
“There’s become a need to define the space for the teens and to make it more teen-friendly.” She said the change would also address the needs of adults who want a quieter work space.
Cahill chairs the Arts and Expedition Committee, the subcommittee that selects artists to fill the second-floor display space. “Every month we recruit artists, both local and regional,” she said. “We had Robert Shetterly come last month who is a real activist artist. He did a whole series of paintings on people who speak truth to power.”
Cahill would like to see upgrades to the physical space. “The library needs some attention, some sprucing up, including the bathrooms and the lighting,” she said.
Cahill said she is excited to continue working on the board and helping to make the library even more successful.
VIPUL BHUSHAN
When Vipul Bhushan thinks about libraries, he thinks about lifelong learning and community. He said his commitment to education inspired him to run for Library Trustee.
“I would like to lend a parent’s voice to the guidance and stewardship of this institution,” he said.
A scientist by training, Bhushan works in the financial services industry. A Needham resident since 2012, he is making his first try for elected office, but he has held many volunteer positions.
“I’ve been on school councils at Newman, at High Rock and at Pollard,” he said. He is also on the board of the Needham Channel and serves as volunteer director of a local credit union.
Bhushan said he is stepping away from his involvement with the leadership of ICON, the Indian Community of Needham. “ICON is a cultural and civic organization that I co-founded,” he said.
“I adore our library,” Bhushan said. “I think we do a lot of things really well.” He said part of the trustees’ job “is to stay the course,” but he identified areas where he advocates improvements.
Bhushan said libraries must adapt their services to a community’s changing needs. For example, he said the Needham library should consider guiding patrons through the process of creating written works. “The library of tomorrow should look at helping members of our community become authors or content creators,” he said.
“Also, we haven’t necessarily leveraged our library as much as we potentially could to support our schools and vice versa. I think that’s an untapped avenue.”
Bhushan supports the expansion of the teen area, but wants to make sure interruptions for library patrons are kept to a minimum. He would like to consider using other town spaces to mitigate interruptions to programming during construction. “That’s something we should be thinking about,” he said.
“The library is a fixture in our town. It’s not only stacks of books and the Dewey Decimal System,” he said. “It’s a center for our community.”
MEGAN MISTRY
Megan Mistry said the skills she has acquired as a doctor, particularly listening carefully and analyzing problems, would serve her well as a Library Trustee. She also describes herself as a lifelong library patron.
“All of the trustees have been really wonderful, but they’ve never had a doctor who’s been a trustee,” she said.
Mistry, who has lived in town since 2009, is a primary care physician. “I am really committed to this community and to help it thrive,” she said.
This is Mistry’s first run for elected office. She has volunteered with the Friends of the Needham Public Library at book sales.
“The job of the trustees, as I understand it, is to oversee the library’s financial health, and to implement long-term goals,” she said. She stressed the importance of seeing through on long-term goals.
“I think it’s important that the library meets every resident where they are in life,” Mistry said. She said the library’s strategic plans through 2027 go a long way toward doing that. At the same time, she would like to see library resources and programs get more visibility.
“Social media and digital media is an area that could be improved on,” Mistry said. She also advocates exploring the idea of exterior signage that touts library events and supports the planned expansion of the teen space on the upper level of the building, which she sees as an example of adapting to community needs.
Mistry said the library should consider increasing its fundraising efforts, including putting on a gala similar to the one sponsored by the Needham History Center & Museum. She said the library should strengthen its ties with other Needham institutions such as the History Museum and the Center at The Heights.
“We can also be a place of safety for people who are feeling left out or alone,” she said.
“The library is a precious public resource. I’d like to be a powerful advocate,” Mistry said.
ROBERT PETITT
“I really believe in the mission of libraries to broaden people’s horizons and ensure free access to information,” incumbent Library Trustee Rob Petitt said. He describes himself as a lifelong library devotee.
Petitt, a corporate lawyer, works to help public corporations with board governance issues. He said his professional skills have been well employed in helping the functioning and deliberation of the library trustees. He has served two full three-year terms on the board.
Petitt, a Needham resident for 11 years, has also been a Town Meeting member since 2019.
Although challenges to the library’s collection are not an imminent threat, Petitt said, “There has been an increase in the attacks on intellectual freedom at libraries across the country.” He said protecting this freedom is an essential task of a library trustee.
“We have a strong diversity initiative at the library,” Petitt said. He wants to make sure the library’s collection reflects that goal.
Petitt supports the proposed library renovation and its strategic plan. “The strategic plan was put together after multiple focus groups,” he said. “The expansion of the teen area is part and parcel of the strategic plan. That was one of the biggest needs we identified at that time.”
Petitt has put together data on library usage from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and from the prior library director. “Circulation numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. We have figures going back about 70 years on that,” he said.
At the same time, Petitt said the library has to beef up access to downloadable audio and audio books, categories of checkouts that are rapidly growing. “We want to move more of those digital subscription fees into our regular budget,” he said. Currently, access is funded through a temporary state program.
Petitt said this trend does not mean less of a focus on physical books. “Print circulation has never gone down. It’s as high as it’s ever been,” he said. “And it still vastly outnumbers digital circulation.”
Petitt said the library should continue to strive to serve all patrons.
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