 I am James Milan, welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town, a special one I have to say because like we're doing a lot these days, unfortunately we've got to say farewell to somebody who has been a regular kind of visitor to Talk of the Town and to ACMI in general and with whom we've collaborated a ton. I am here in the community room at our beloved Robbins Library with our beloved Library Director, Andrea Nicolai. As I said at the outset, unfortunately for the last time that we get to talk to Andrea in this capacity. She is after a good long stretch at the helm here, going to be moving on and we'll talk about that a little bit later in our conversation but basically I wanted to take this opportunity to look back over the years with Andrea that she's been here and lots and lots of changes, new programs, innovative kind of responses to things that have happened. One or two things you all may be familiar with but anyway, let me first thank you as always for being here and we really do appreciate it. It's a pleasure to be here, thanks James. So tell us about you know, as you first came in to Arlington, it was as an assistant library director, I remember that well, what did you know of Arlington at that point? Yeah, so in the summer of 2012 I knew that I wanted to leave New York City for a new opportunity and I actually knew Arlington already because I have friends who grew up here. So friends from my college era who grew up here and had fond memories of Arlington from growing up. Oh yeah, so actually one of my dearest friends grew up right here in Arlington and was a big baseball star during his day. Anyway, I heard a lot of stories about Arlington before I actually ever considered moving here and working for the town. So had a very favorable impression and then when the assistant director job opportunity became available, just looking at the website at the community, talking to some folks who live in the area, I was really enticed and it was an easy decision to apply. With connections in the area, very easy decision to accept the position when it was offered and Ryan Livergood was the director at the time and he was just terrific. Such a positive force and a great mentor to me. So I was really lucky to have that experience as assistant director. So you had friends who had grown up in Arlington and of course then you did disinvestigating that you're talking about. What specifically stood out for you about Arlington compared to, I don't know, just a number of other places that had you excited about coming in? Well I think it felt familiar in a way, a much bigger town than the town where I grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey, which is a town of 12,000. Arlington is obviously a much bigger town but similar characteristics, I mean a lot of Victorian homes, colonial homes, it really seemed familiar and comfortable to me and Arlington has such rich history and that all kind of appealed to me. In addition, I think the disposition of the region, I mean there's so many schools here, Boston is such an exciting city. So it seemed like a combination of wonderful worlds to me and when I started meeting the people who live here and who work for the library and who support the library, I mean it was just, it really all came together for a fantastic experience. I know I'm getting a little bit beyond your question now. No, no, that's fine. And you know Ryan, I also remember Ryan well as just a very, he was very kind of embracing and expansive person. He really just did a good job of continuing to make this place, Robbins and of course the Fox Library as well. The community centers, really the beating hearts in some ways of this community that they continue to be and that you expanded upon I have to say. Thank you. Well yeah, Ryan was a great mentor, really fun loving guy. I will never forget in this very community room during the first Arlington Book Festival I ran as assistant director, Steve Allman had just written a book about football and Ryan dressed up in an old timey football costume for that program. And Ryan did have a lion, like he does probably still, I haven't seen him in a while, but he had a football kind of, you know, linemen's just, you know, he was much, he was very affable, he is very affable and friendly and all that stuff, he was, you know, he could wear a uniform like that. I'm sure he'd appreciate that impression, absolutely. Yeah, he was a great guy, continues to be a great guy, we're still in touch. And he's executive director of the Gurney Illinois Public Library system. So anyway, I still stay in touch with Ryan, but I had such a great time working with him and for him and in support of all kinds of exciting initiatives for the library. He was the one who, for example, started the idea of having something to support the maker community in town. At first that was conceived as a maker space which so many libraries were doing at the time, but then it morphed into our current, our library of things. And he was also the one who recognized the potential in the Beehive, the non-profit that ran the Beehives for the region, and helped get that underway and we now, we still have Beehives on the third floor balcony because of Ryan Livergood starting that program. And the popular addition they had been right from the beginning, that's for sure. Absolutely. So what, I mean, obviously when Ryan left, you assumed the directorship. So briefly, like what are, how much do the duties change? What, in what way is the, you know, moving from assistant to directing? You know, what are the things that you're taking on there that are new? Yeah, well what I had to learn as a new library director was how important it was and is to maintain and nurture relationships with people who support the library, whether they be residents in town, or support groups. At the time that I became director in 2015, the Arlington Libraries Foundation was still getting off the ground as an organization. And part of my job, an important part of my job as a young director became supporting the foundation in its growth. And that meant, you know, contributing toward, contributing written materials for the annual appeal and all kinds of support for the board itself, communication and, you know, collecting the mail, et cetera. And just making sure that I was being a good steward of the funds that were donated to the foundation for the library. So that was, and that's been one of the greatest pleasures of my role as director, seeing that group grow and change and develop into the foundation that it is today. And now it's raising well over $100,000 a year and that's tremendous. I've also seen the Friends Group, I mean the Friends Group is another group that I have close relationship with as a director and the assistant director also helps in liaising with the Friends Group and helping them with their initiatives and making sure that they have the space they need and that the book sales go off without a hitch. And they've also been just such a pleasurable group to work with and so motivated and so positive. So, yeah. I want to jump in on the, you know, you might think I would want to jump in on the Friends side because, you know, I was lucky enough to be a board member on the Friends for a little while as well. But actually I wanted to talk about just kind of highlight or acknowledge that the work that you just described that you did in helping the foundation to get off the ground and reach the point that it is now, that's such important seed work for that your successor is going to be able to enjoy the fruits of because, like you said, you need to provide a lot of stuff just for them to do their thing in terms of, again, getting things rolling to the point where they are now. Very established, as you said, pulling in good amount of money each year. Very nice. That was starting from zero, really, right? And Arlington, I will say, has a long tradition of philanthropy towards the library. So, I mean, starting with the very beginning, I mean, look at the name of this building. The Robbins Library was established with funds given by Maria Robbins in memory of her husband, Eli, and there is this strong tradition of not only philanthropy toward the library, but also municipal support of our hours, our materials, and all of the things that we need to help us run smoothly. I really have to acknowledge the town manager, Adam Chapter Lane, for all of his support over the years. He's helped me and the trustees add positions to the library that have greatly enhanced our services. We have also been able to add hours to the library, so through the town's support, we shifted funding for Sundays from private fund sources to the municipal budget, and that's very appropriate, wonderful for the community, an important service, and I'm really pleased to say, you know, this is getting into a little bit of the future, but I'm so happy to be able to announce that the library will be open for the first time in its history from 9 to 5 on Saturdays in July and August. So, yeah, we will be... Yeah, that's been a kind of a dead time for weekends. Well, in the past, it perhaps was, and there was this sense, I think, for a long, long time that Arlington emptied out in the summertime and that people went to the Cape or what have you, and that is, you know, our world has changed dramatically since those times, and we have a lot of, you know, we have tons of people who take advantage of our summer, Saturday hours, which had been 9 to noon on Saturdays in July and August. They were among our most popular hours of the whole year, so we knew that once we expanded those hours, they would be a hit, and I have absolutely no doubt that they're going to be really popular. We're an important place to cool off as well as there are climate changes, and the library is taking on all sorts of interesting new roles in the face of climate change. I think the cooling center is one example of that. Right. So, let's just say the library has taken on all kinds of new roles under, again, your stewardship here, because, you know, the pandemic is the big thing, of course, and we will talk about that. But in general, there has been a kind of constant and organic growth in the services that you provide, and that in response to what you can tell the community is looking for. As you just said, expanded hours on Saturday is something that if you open it, they will come, right? And you can be pretty sure about that, but that means that you're paying attention to what seems important or what are priorities for the community in terms of what the library can provide. I think you've done that in other ways. Tell us about some of the things that have, you know, that have basically come to life, you know, during your years here. Yeah, sure. So, one thing I'm really proud of that started actually is an outcome of that Arlington Book Festival I mentioned earlier. We realized that there were so many authors in town and so many authors in this region who were interested in a platform, you know, to share their creativity and meet each other. And so, the Arlington Author's Salon was a program series that developed out of the Book Festival. I was lucky enough to meet Anjali Mitarduva and Whitney Sher who are two local authors who then became primary organizers and volunteer organizers of this salon that we've been so happy to support over the years. We've received grants from the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture, another organization that deserves a major shout-out for the development and growth that they've seen and that they've made happen over the last five years and more. But, yeah, the Arlington Author's Salon was a grant-funded program through the ACAC and we've hosted over 80 authors as a result of this series. That's fantastic. And we get great turnouts. People love that series. We have a loyal following. And during COVID, of course, we had to go virtual with that series but now we're returning to the Kickstand Cafe. Sadly, I will be leaving before the July 14th Author's Salon but it's returning to Kickstand and we're so happy about that. We also have a succession plan in place for the Author's Salon so that will continue. Another initiative that I'm particularly proud of is, let's see, the historical Arlington newspapers. That name right every time because we went back and forth. Historic, historical. We landed on historical. So the historical Arlington newspapers, of course, is the digitized advocate and the other local papers that existed even before the advocate. And we did spend some time, I know you and I and Richard Duffy talking about that initiative on a previous occasion but it's one of those projects that's going to have such a long and fruitful life for the town. Just opening up the annals of history, as they say, to help connect people with this important resource of town history. So seeing that... Yeah, it's never going to not be relevant. It's never exactly. Well, exactly. Yeah, there will always be a reason for people to turn to it. And it was very palpable in talking to you and Richard on that occasion which was the first episode of Check It Out, the series that we hope to continue as well, of course, with the library. But it was very palpable, your excitement as well as his about being able to offer this to the community. You realize just what kind of a resource that is. Oh, yeah. And we have... Well, he's not so new anymore. We have a local history librarian who's really taking that on and invested in promoting it. His name's Stephen Prashay and he's been great about, you know, supporting genealogical research and local history research for anybody who's interested in Arlington and we're so happy to have him on board. The other project that I wanted to call out that happened during my tenure is the Reimagining Our Libraries project. So back in 2017, the trustees funded a building study for Robins and Fox to look at the physical spaces, what the community would like to see in the future of the physical spaces. And at that time, we developed two building plans for Robins and for Fox. Very ambitious building plans that we have since had to re-examine as a result of some seriously changed finances for the town, as you're well aware. But we're still keeping our eyes on the prize of changes to our physical spaces that make sense for the community, that help the library serve better. Among those changes is a shift and an increased amount of space for teens in the library. We've seen with the population growth, the enrollment growth in town, our teen space is just not big enough for all the teens who want to be there. So the idea is to shift that teen space from where it is now on the mass outside of the building on the first floor into the fiction room and shift the fiction collection over to where the teen space is. So we're going to swap, but we're also hoping to unite the hardcover and paperback collections of fiction, which have always been separate. Yeah, that's one of the few things I have to say that just have never made sense to me about this place. Maybe the only thing, I'm not sure. So yeah, increasing the teen space would be wonderful, and that's something that I hope that the residents of the town will support in future years with the value of it. And in addition to that, increasing our meeting room spaces, so we want to add a couple of smaller meeting rooms on the third floor. We want to renovate the bathrooms on the first floor, which are not in great shape as anyone who has used them knows. They are very well used and not in very good shape, right? Yes, both of those things are true. In order to really be up to code, I mean, right now, we don't have grandfathered in, but in order to really serve people who traffic this building, we need bathrooms on the upper floors. So I know it's not a super sensational, you know... It's not sexy. It's not too sexy, but it's very important to have, to provide convenience to people who want to use the library and having those facilities on upper floors makes a lot of sense. And lastly, I would just mention that one of the other dreams of the Robbins Library renovations was actually connecting this very community room to the exterior with an ADA ramp, connecting it with the garden by extending the children's patio all the way to the end of the building. So these are all dreams with a price tag, but I think that those improvements would really be a game changer for the community and the library space in all kinds of creative and exciting ways, and improving accessibility, which is always going to be a priority for us. Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously you can't help as you move on, but think a little bit about legacy. We always talk about that kind of thing or think about that kind of thing as you move as you transition from one thing to another. And clearly, you've just outlined several areas in which the laborers continue to just kind of bear, you know, come to fruition in a lot of ways, which I hope you will, you know, be looking at from Albany and going, yeah, cool. No question. I mean, the next director is going to have their own vision and their own ideas and their own way of tapping into community feelings about the library, tapping into the community sense of what the library should be and could be for the town. So we have to allow for that. At the same time, I think, you know, it's going to be very exciting to keep tracking the Robin's Library. I mean, I'm going to keep my e-newsletter subscription. And I will also continue to keep in touch with so many people who work here and who also just are in town. So, you know, I'll have all kinds of ways of tracking that's great because I think you're invested in it clearly, obviously, but also I think you want to see, you know, what happens from the seeds that you've sown. So I think that you should and I hope you'll feel really, really good about it. Oh, absolutely. Library is a special place. There is no secret that time is flying here as we talk. But let me ask you just to briefly talk about, like, the pandemic and how the library pivoted in so many ways to continue to provide the best kind of service to a community that absolutely has the library at its center. Yeah, so one of the toughest things about shutting down the library at the beginning of the pandemic was cutting off access to all of our physical collections. So, you know, while we immediately invested and promoted our digital resources, our prodigious and people took advantage of those digital resources and we were able to offer sing-alongs and story times online through various platforms and that was all well received but there came a time when, you know, it became clear we needed to find a way to get materials back into the hands of patrons. They are asking for it. We want to do it. We have to find a way. And so through the support of the Minuteman Library network, which I can't overstate the value of their support to all of their member libraries during COVID. But we developed contactless pickup. There was an app that people could use to arrange a time to pick up reserve materials. That was kind of the first baby step toward getting physical materials back into the hands of patrons. Then we were able to open up our lobby a little bit for drop-in pickup which was also the way that we started bringing grab bags to the community and grab bags were these custom collections of materials that we would check out to patrons who wanted, you know, books for their toddler on trains or what have you. There was an online forum where people could easily request that material. Those were incredibly popular so drop-in pickup became a really important service for that delivery and for just regular hold materials. And then eventually as public health conditions improved, we were able to open up appointment browsing which were, you know, 15-minute increments that you could book. And I did. And I did. Oh my gosh. And I mean there were all kinds of suggestions that came from the community about ways that we could, you know, improve upon these practices and it was so wonderful to hear from people. At the same time, so many libraries ourselves included were limited by the physical structure of the building. And there were libraries, for example, that had a door that you could enter through and a door you could easily exit through. With this building configuration we didn't have the setup that would really easily permit that. And so a lot of our systems were developed within the confines of this building. But the greeter, I mean the drop-in, the appointment browsing the drop-in pickup, all of that went really well as well as it could possibly have gone. And we were just so happy on the day when we could do away with appointment browsing and open up the floors again. In fact, there's a great picture, a jump shot that I did in front of the library steps that the assistant director captured that celebrated that moment. I think it was like June 21st of 2021 or something. Anyway it was such a joy to like reopen the libraries for people when we were able to. And I'm happy to say that in our what we're calling our rebound year of this fiscal year we're seeing record circulation like of all time. And it's so exciting. And you actually saw record circulation even with all of the I mean not record, I mean there was healthy circulation it seemed like the grab bags were crazy because I do remember looking into the reading room, you know, when I would come in when it was just very restricted to the lobby, you look in the reading room and it's table after table after table just full bags that people were, you know, ready to come in and grab. Yeah, we've continued that service. So people are still requesting grab bags, we're still providing them. But yeah, our circulation definitely took a hit in 2020-2021 but I think with the rediscovery a lot of people rediscovered library services or discovered different library services that they didn't know about. One of the most popular digital resources that we offer is the magazines available through Overdrive and a lot of people don't know that you can get full access, total like complete content including all the ads and all of the articles and pictures for all of these magazines that carry very pricey subscriptions outside of, you know, the library. So it's really exciting to see that kind of discovery going on and to be able to, you know, enhance it. Well, libraries are as I've told you many times my choice of best public institution, you know, in history. But so, you know, that being said the way in which you continue to just listen to the community, respond and then provide the opportunity for people to make the very most of their local library here. It's been impressive. And boy are we grateful. So I really, really appreciate it. We have seconds left but let me ask you you're leaving, obviously. I'm sure you loved your job here. I'm sure it was fulfilling in any number of ways as you've already described. So what's drawing you away? Well, in short, my family. My sister, her family, my parents, they all relocated to Albany, New York within the last five years which no one expected necessarily but that is the situation and I have an adorable three year old nephew I have another nephew on the way and I really look forward to being part of their lives and so when I learned of the executive director position at Albany Public Library back in the spring and it seemed like pretty much a no-brainer that I should throw my hat in. I had no idea what my prospects would be like but I liked the look of the library. I liked what I was seeing online started following them on social media. I had been receiving their newsletter ever since I was just removed there in 2017 so I was an admirer of the Albany Public Library and when the position came available I was just like, okay I've got to see about this and pleasantly surprised when I got that offer and I I'm looking forward to the new challenge but I am really going to Miss Arlington it has been a wonderful place to work if not for this opportunity and my family situation I would not be going anywhere 20 years I don't know who knows but I'm really going to Miss Arlington I got to say you're no politician because I believe you when you say that it's all about spending more time with your family and I sure as hell wouldn't if it was somebody who I was skeptical about but that's a super compelling reason and I'm glad there is one for taking you away from us because it has been as I said a really successful you know 8 to 10 years of your tenure here 7 to 10 years depending on whether you're talking about assistant or director but it's been really good for us well thank you for saying that I also need to say that it was great when I arrived here a lot of the job of a good library director is keeping the good things going and developing new things well the next library director go ahead and follow and subscribe to that save idea and I imagine they will anyway Andrea thank you I get the privilege of being a voice in the community that represents some other people as well I hope in saying really great work good luck we'll miss you for sure but we obviously wish you the best thank you James it's been a pleasure and with that we will wrap up this episode of talk of the town I have been speaking to Andrea Nicolai the director of our libraries for a short while more and we're going to savor it with our appreciation for Andrea and for to you as well for being here I'm James Milan this is talk of the town and we will see you next time