Wilmington Memorial 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 to participate in the State Aid to Public Libraries program. Communities that do not meet MBLC standards and are not granted a waiver are decertified. The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners considers any municipality that closes its main public library or ceases offering library service 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 or death or pandemic) to be, as of the date of that termination of service, no longer a certified participant in the State Aid to Public Libraries program.”¹

The regulations governing this program state that “all public libraries participating in the direct state aid grant program must be willing, on a reciprocal basis, to extend direct access and services to nonresidents who are cardholders in other libraries participating in the state grant program”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 Wilmington Memorial Library. Permitting such use would subsidize library services to a community unwilling to support its own public library at the expense of Wilmington taxpayers. Therefore, Wilmington Memorial Library will not lend library materials to residents and cardholders (including ecard holders) of decertified communities, either through direct reciprocal borrowing or through inter-library loan and network transfers. However, Wilmington Memorial Library will allow residents and cardholders of decertified communities to have access to our library facility, use our reading room and reference services, and attend our programs.

1. Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.  “Policy, FY26 State Aid to Public Libraries Program, The Closure of a Public Library”.  Approved October 5, 2023.  (State Aid Policies are approved annually.)
2. 605 CMR 4.01
3. Ibid.

Approved: Board of Library Trustees January 18, 2005
Updated and approved by Board of Library Trustees May 20, 2025