Meet Ruth Jolliffee

May 10, 2023

Incumbent Ruth Jolliffee has been a board member on the library trust for over 10 years.

Jolliffee said that she oversaw the moving and arranging of books after the Mattapoisett Free Public Library was rebuilt in 2008, afterwards she was asked to be a trustee.

“Not all the decisions have been made, you know, where should novels be or nonfiction, where should biography [be], that kind of thing,” Jolliffee said.

During her time on the board of trustees, Jolliffee assisted in the interview and search process to hire library director Jennifer Jones and said that has been pleased with Jones’s leadership.

“She jumped right in during the pandemic,” she said, adding that Jones provided contactless book pick-up for patrons during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Joliffee said she hopes to see a number of programs continue to expand at the library including the “library of things”- a program that offers objects for rent such as fishing poles, the summer reading program and literacy programs for adults.

“It is a community center,” she said. “There's all sorts of different things, it is a remarkable space.”

Joliffee said that she hopes to see more technology resources such as “the owl,” a web camera used for online meetings at the library.

Although Joliffee said that she is not a librarian, she has a range of career experiences including being the associate director of the Boston Athenaeum, working as a business manager for an architectural firm and publishing for American Heritage Magazine.

“I knew about management and people and leadership and the needs of the users as well as how the staff has to interact,” she said. “I was used to all sides of the operation.”

Joliffee said that one of the biggest issues that the library is facing is the national trend to remove controversial books from shelves.
“I think as Americans, we get a choice of what you want to read,” she said. “Now, young children, I can understand that parents should be involved…they need to be there and need to be taught and informed,” said Joliffee.

Jolifee said that the library’s greatest strength is its welcoming atmosphere.

“It's more than a community center as it is a place of learning and in a way it even reaches out to you that way,” she said.