Townsend Public Library

Great location for the 2022 Townsend Festival of Trees and Holiday Fair. Over 100 vendors filled nearly every inch of the connected buildings and beautifully decorated Christmas trees filled the rest. There was a huge variety of hand crafted items available and the organizers handed out a guide that showed where each vendor was located making it easy to find something specific if you happend to be in a hurry. Over the years I have always found some great gifts at this particular holiday fair and this year was no exception! My grand daughter found some treasures too! The staff is super helpful and I was able to renew my library card which was a major bonus! The parking lot and buildings are fully accessible and easy to navigate. Such a great holiday experience!

This library has records and record players!!! This is one of the best Massachusetts libraries I’ve been to. I’ve been getting into rock ‘n’ roll music from the 1970s and 1980s, and they have so many books of bands from that era, like biographies and even photographic books from photographers from the era with never before seen pictures of great bands. They also have portable record players to borrow and a small shelf of records. You must check out and return the record player and records here and not at any other library. This is also a C/W Mars library, which is good because I live too far away and I could return my books at my local library instead. This is the only C/W Mars library I’ve seen that has a decent selection of records and record players. Oxford has a record player but only

Fantastic Library, rich in history. Funded by Mr Al Stone, owner of Sterilite Corporation, the buildings high ceiling is designed and constructed to represent a wooden barrel. The large brown arcs that form the ceiling denote the hoops that encircled a barrel and holding it together. The significance of this design is that Sterilite is built on the site of the former Fesseden Barrel Factory. This feature is wholly appropriate as a tribute to one of the industries that contributed to the development and growth of early Townsend Massachusetts.

Staff members, especially Stacy and Cathy are always welcoming and helpful. The new arrivals shelf is continually updated with new books. Lately though it seems the library has become a substitute day care center for 'tween' age kids who are naturally loud and rambunctious. It is not fair to staff and patrons who want to quietly read and explore the shelves. Just last week I witnessed two instances of kids running and chasing each other in the stacks. Solutions?

I hate to leave a 1 star review but after attending story times for over a month, I have come to realize most of the staff are horribly miserable and make you feel unwelcome the second you walk into the door. You are glared at with the most disrespectful demeanor. The story time teacher is amazing but the other women at the desks act as if they hate you for coming in. I have been to all the libraries in the surrounding towns and this one is by far the most unwelcoming. I have smiled and said hello multiple times as someone is always near the door and not as much as a smirk or simple greeting has once come from them. When you have a proffession which requires you to be in public, you'd think these staff would be trained in simple human decency. These women act as If they want to fight you a