Memorial Hall Library upholds the importance of maintaining the minimum standards of public library service required for a community to be certified by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Communities that do not meet MBLC standards and are not granted a waiver are decertified. The closing of a public library for "any reason other than the undertaking of a project to improve library service (construction, automation preparation or inventory) or the occurrence of a natural catastrophe (including a limited emergency closing due to illness, death, or pandemic)"¹ results in immediate decertification.

The regulations governing certification state that " Certified libraries must "lend books and other materials to other libraries in the Commonwealth and extend privileges to holders of cards issued by other public libraries in the Commonwealth on a reciprocal basis.”² The regulations do not oblige participants to lend materials to residents of decertified communities, only to provide "access to reading and reference rooms under the same conditions as residents of the [local] community."³

Full use by residents of decertified communities would be an inappropriate reliance on Memorial Hall Library. Permitting such use would subsidize library services to a community unwilling to support its own public library at the expense of Andover taxpayers. Therefore, Memorial Hall Library will discontinue borrowing privileges to residents and out-of-state cardholders of decertified communities.

1. https://mblc.state.ma.us/programs-and-support/state-aid-and-aris/policies.php FY25 Approval Date: November 3, 2022 (Reviewed annually).
2. 605 CMR 4.01
3. Ibid.

Approved: Board of Library Trustees, September 17, 2003, Amended December 11, 2024