Every good library serves a purpose.

Byline: George Barnes 

COLUMN: BARNESTORMING

PHILLIPSTON - Off the northeast end of Phillipston Common there is a tiny, nondescript yet satisfied-looking building that is the town library.

If your idea of a library is one of the many ornate and architecturally interesting structures in towns around Central Massachusetts, you might mistake this for someone's tiny house.

The unobtrusive structure is my favorite building on a town common dominated by a nice old wooden town hall and a classic New England church.

If you miss the library, you miss a true gem. It is a building that should be at the top of destinations for visitors to New England just because of its simplicity.

When I grew up in Templeton, I came to believe the most important public building in a community was its library. I place more importance on libraries than town halls, churches, fire and police stations and other places I think are essential to sustaining a community.

I had something of an advantage in reaching this kind of thinking, having two aunts who were librarians.

My aunt Mildred Henshaw was my librarian and served as a librarian for 32 years in Templeton. I spent many hours in the Boynton Public Library, learning to appreciate literature, books and writing in general.

My Aunt Millie (I always worried that I should probably call her Mrs. Henshaw when I addressed her at the library) was someone I was comfortable turning to for advice about finding books and suggestions on what I should read.

My other aunt, Edna Haley, just retired after 42 years as librarian in Phillipston, the keeper of what I think is one of the world's most perfect libraries.

The Phillips Free Public Library is housed in a nicely preserved former one-room schoolhouse. It has grown a little, but it is basically the same as I remember it when my aunt would take me there as a child.

It is to Aunt Edna's credit that she kept her library exactly perfect for a town like Phillipston, while offering a surprisingly current selection of books and making the place one of the most welcoming public buildings I've ever visited.

There is no "Shhhhhhhhh!" in the Phillipston library. If you went there any time during Aunt Edna's 42 years running the library, you might find some local inside telling jokes or chatting her up about some town issue, and kids talking to her about books or asking about some of the local artifacts kept in the building as decorations and objects of historical curiosity.

The library was never irritatingly loud, but it was alive and people friendly.

My aunt's success was in understanding the library's place in her community.

Every library has a purpose, and those running it try to understand and achieve that purpose.

Gardner, Fitchburg, Leominster and, to a lesser extent, Athol have regional libraries that draw book lovers from within and outside their communities. They have grown and expanded to meet increased demand and technological sophistication.

Phillipston is not, and never should be, a regional library. Its sophistication is in its useful simplicity.

In 2007, all of the several regional libraries are not much more than a half hour's drive away. The larger Worcester Library can be reached by a short trip as well.

The Phillips Free Library is just a short, healthy walk across the Common for Phillipston Elementary School students, and they regularly use it during the school year.

It is one of their starting places for learning to love the written word, and many my age, now grown, remember it warmly.

What I remember warmly is that a visit to my aunt's house would often include a trip to her library, where I could read, borrow a book or two and feel welcome, even though I was from, gasp, Templeton.

She made sure it was not a private club, open only to townspeople. It was for everybody, local or not, rich, poor or in-between.

And from her and her library, I learned the value of place, of people and of doing things well.

A story told at her recent retirement party was that of a close family friend, Paul Twohey, who was on the Board of Selectmen when she was hired as librarian.

He voted against hiring her, saying he did not think a woman raising eight children would have time to properly run the town library.

Mr. Twohey ate his words many times over the years.

It was never an issue of my aunt finding enough time to run the library while raising eight children.

There were often a dozen or so kids running around her house any time I would visit, children of family, friends and neighbors.

Often the friends included Paul Twohey's children.

Like me, the Twoheys spent many hours at the Haley house, hanging around, playing, working in the large garden, going off to Queen Lake beach in a jam-packed family station wagon and, of course, visiting the library.

And all the time Aunt Edna was helping raise her extended family, she found time to be a pillar of her church, served as a town assessor and a behind-the-scenes political leader for her community and ran a perfect little library.

I think hers is a pretty good legacy.