Rather than ask friends to write letters supporting my election to the Harvard Public Library board of trustees, I’m going direct. People who know me, or have seen me at Town Meeting, know that’s my style. I think I’m good at understanding complex situations and articulating key issues clearly. And I try to use humor to soften the edges of challenging ideas.
I’ve lived in Harvard for over 30 years; my two daughters graduated from Bromfield, and one of them is an English professor, in part due to Natalie Cohen’s inspirational teaching. I’ve served on numerous task forces and committees concerning town center. I majored in math as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago (where I protested against police violence in 1968, for all the good it did), and have a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Yale. I’ve worked in social policy analysis and high-tech for decades, as both leader and member of (mostly) successful teams.
Despite my STEM-focused background, I’ve been an avid and wide reader all my life, and an enthusiastic patron of the annual book sale. Libraries feature prominently in one of my family’s foundational stories: My father was the smart son of poor immigrants, living behind his father’s watch repair shop in Waterbury, Connecticut; he spent countless hours in his neighborhood library. When he was a teenager, the family moved to the Bronx, and he discovered the wonders of the New York Public Library. He dropped out of college during the Depression, spent two years there reading, then finished college. That work he did in the library launched his career; we never lived behind a store. At the end of his memorial service in Manhattan, when I said that people who wanted to make contributions in his honor could give to the New York Public Library, there was a moment of silence, then the gathering applauded.
I want to serve on the Harvard Public Library’s board to honor my father and my daughter, whose life paths were shaped by libraries, and to give something back to the town where my kids grew up and my wife and I are growing old.
Billy Salter
Elm Street
