All the books are back on their shelves at the Vineyard Haven Public Library, which reopened to the public last week after more than a year of renovations.
From April 2025 until earlier this month, the library operated out of a Church street storefront while the Main street building was gutted and restored.
On Saturday morning, dozens of townspeople and other well-wishers, including Tisbury officials and the directors of other Island libraries, gathered to celebrate the reopening.
“The library is the soul of the community,” said Arch Smith, chair of the library’s board of trustees, who oversaw the project with director Amy Ryan.
All are welcome there, including the homeless, Mr. Smith said.
“It’s a place where we can expand our intellectual being, but we also can get great comfort,” he said.
Mr. Smith thanked Tisbury voters who backed the library’s request to borrow up to $4.8 million for urgently-needed repairs and improvements throughout the building, from the roof to the plumbing.
Hundreds of private donors also stepped up, he said, to fund the $1.5 million construction of a new, spacious and light-filled program room for concerts, classes and other events.
“We’re very excited about getting a real program room,” trustee Elizabeth Bates told the Gazette.
Library events formerly took place in the basement, she said. That space is now the young adult section.
Retired special events coordinator Betty Burton, who worked with Ms. Ryan to get the project started nearly a decade ago, returned for Saturday’s ribbon-cutting.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ms. Burton said.
Tisbury folk singer Tristan Israel and his band inaugurated the new program room last week, and children’s entertainer Tom Seiling had kids and parents twirling and giggling during Saturday’s grand opening celebration.
Ms. Ryan said a Steinway piano will arrive this week, the gift of artist and Tisbury homeowner Laurene Krasny Brown.
Pianist Silas Berlin will play the instrument at a concert August 18, she said.
Windows and glass doors connect the new program room to a brick courtyard planted with flower, shrub and tree varieties mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.
Prominent landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, an emeritus professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, designed the library’s landscaping at a fraction of his usual fee, Mr. Smith said.
The courtyard also adjoins the main reading room, with more windows and another glass door providing ample natural light and access to the garden.
The library currently is closed on Mondays while finishing touches are being added.
Ms. Ryan said the library’s art collection, including ship portraits by mariner and folk artist Captain John Ivory, will return to the newly-painted walls soon.
A new, three-dimensional wall piece by Island artist Margot Datz is on its way for the children’s room, where it’s scheduled to be unveiled in mid-August.
After Saturday’s ribbon-cutting, Tisbury select board member Connie Alexander stopped by the desk to borrow books by Mary Oliver, James Herriot and Sven Nordqvist.
“I so loved coming here with my little children. It meant so much to my kids [and] now I bring my grandchildren,” Ms. Alexander said.
She also endorsed the library’s welcome to homeless patrons.
“Libraries play a pivotal role in the health and well-being of our community,” Ms. Alexander said.
“I just love libraries in general. They are a rich tapestry of mixed culture and opinion, [with] that layer of respect and dignity, whoever you are,” she said.
This article appears in July 31, 2026.