PRESIDENT

Carolyn is originally from Colorado and became an East Coaster when she attended Hobart & William Smith College and never looked back. She started her post-college life working at an internet start-up in Portsmouth, NH.

One day, unhappy with her current job, she walked into Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, NH, and the rest, as they say, “is history.” She worked there for a year, then went on to manage the Book Rack in Newburyport for ten years. That was an amazing experience. From there, as she and her husband began to grow their family, she left the store and began her own company, You Are Here Books. She ran bookfairs for schools and various communities and supplied books for author events.

As her kids grew older, she returned to the mothership, Water Street Bookstore, where she is today. Meanwhile, she joined the board of the Friends of the Amesbury Public Library as a board member and ultimately took on the role as president.

She has two remarkable children, one in college at Dean in Franklin, MA, the other a senior at Governor’s Academy, and a husband, who recently retired from 35 years of teaching history at Haverhill High School.

Carolyn has always loved being around “Stacks” of books. She generally reads historical fiction, thrillers and horror and is always happy to offer unsolicited recommendations. She believe public libraries are a crucial part of any community, fostering curiosity and the constant pursuit of an enriched life; and Amesbury Public Library is just that.

VICE PRESIDENT

Jenna-Lee grew up in Amesbury and has always been an avid reader. She absolutely loves the library and she and her family have enjoyed its programming and events over the years. When the opportunity arose for her to volunteer to help the library thrive, she jumped at the opportunity to do so! Jenna-Lee manages two local dental practices and provides administrative support for Stone Ridge properties. She spends her summer weekends enjoying her family’s lake cottage and you can find her rink side all winter long, cheering on her daughter’s hockey team. Jenna-Lee encourages you to learn more about the Friends and to jump in where you can, to further enhance our beautiful community.

TREASURER

Andrea Paquin grew up in the Lowell area and spent time in New York City, Somerville, MA and Long Xuyen, Vietnam before settling down in Amesbury. For seven years, she taught academic English and writing to international students at the University of New Hampshire. Since then, she has managed the business operations for a consulting firm that provides program management, logistics, and engineering services to various government and commercial customers. Truth be told- she never thought of herself as a numbers person- always gravitating toward reading and writing; however, when she found herself in the world of accounting and bookkeeping and financial reporting, she was thrilled to apply those skills supporting the Friends as Treasurer. Andrea has been an Amesbury resident for 10 years and has two young children who frequent the library and love browsing The Stacks. She believes public libraries and the programming they offer are the cornerstone of a community, and Amesbury happens to be a particularly wonderful community! 

SECRETARY

Caitlin Chaloux lives in Amesbury with her husband and their two young sons. A book lover since her Nancy Drew days, she now enjoys everything from contemporary fiction to timeless classics, with a particular fondness for historical fiction and a newfound interest in fantasy. Libraries have always held a special place in Caitlin’s heart. From her hometown library in Hampstead, NH, to the Villanova University library where she wrote many of her English papers, and even the public library in Cork City, Ireland, where Caitlin spent time as an au pair, she has always felt at home at the library. The Amesbury Public Library has become a favorite family destination for Caitlin and her two curious little ones. They delight in exploring the Kids’ Room and joining story time and the other fun events offered outside on the side lawn. Caitlin takes great pleasure in browsing the library’s shelves and stumbling upon unexpected literary treasures!

BOOK SHOP MANAGER

Anna grew up in Acton, MA and has bounced around New England, including a short stint in Colorado, until she finally settled down in Amesbury in 2019. In all of the places she's lived, the library was always the first stop to get a library card. The lifelong love of books started young, with daily trips to the library, continuing with a career in libraries as her first job was a library page in high school. Today, after pivoting from working in libraries to archives to museums to hospitals, Anna now works in fundraising at Greenbelt, a land trust responsible for stewarding land in Essex County, Massachusetts. Outside of her day-to-day, she lives with her husband and her dog and a cat in an old fixer-upper that they're endlessly working on. Besides working on her house improvements, she likes to go running, road and trail, and collect more books for her TBR list from local bookstores and in her travels around the world. 

Jillian is a proud lifelong resident of Amesbury. Both she and her husband grew up in town and frequented this same library as children and love sharing that experience with their young son. Jillian’s son is always thrilled to pick a book from the library and enjoy all that the kids area has to offer. She has always been an avid reader and loves to wind down at the end of the day with a book in hand. Jillian also loves coffee, wine, hot power yoga, and seeing live music. Jillian is thrilled to be joining the Friends and helping to promote all that the library has to offer our wonderful community.

Alison is a northeastern Massachusetts native originally from Haverhill. She moved to Amesbury in the early 2000s following her undergraduate studies in English in the Berkshires. Alison was fortunate to work for large commercial academic publishers in Boston early in her career. She remembers the days of reviewing paper galleys and using proofreaders’ marks fondly. At the very same time, Alison earned her M.A. in Publishing and Writing at Emerson College.  

As the industry continued to transform in line with advances in web-based digital innovations, Alison shifted toward the technology side of the business working for the vendor partners publishers increasingly rely on to create, produce, distribute, and track performance of content. A former publisher, she found herself very useful to these organizations in sales and marketing. Across the years, Alison volunteered for several professional development and community initiatives in the space including Society for Scholarly Publishing, Council of Science Editors, International Society of Managing and Technical Editors, Peer Review Week, Contributor Roles Taxonomy and Workplace Equity Initiative among others. 

In 2016, Alison was elected to the Board of Trustees of the South Hampton Public Library in South Hampton, New Hampshire, where she moved in 2015 with her husband and two small children. Right from the start, Alison and family kept their roots in Amesbury active, a very special place for them.  

Alison served the South Hampton Board for two three-year terms during which the library undertook an extensive modernization of the technical infrastructure, launched new and increased community engagement and reinvigorated leadership and staff development. Today, the South Hampton Library is a small but mighty hub of community programming for children and adults that is highly responsive to feedback and community needs, and demonstrates a penchant for continuous improvement. 

In 2019, Alison launched her own consultancy to help a growing number of start-up technology organizations in the academic publishing space – including non-profits and open-source providers – to obtain and grow their funding, to experiment with their business models, to collaborate with each other, and also with legacy players, and also to access shared, sustainable marketing resources.  

In 2024, Alison joined Clarivate’s product marketing team. In 2025, Alison and family returned to Amesbury which makes this the perfect time to lend support to the Friends – particularly in the areas of marketing, fundraising, and events.  

Donna moved from NY to Amesbury 35 years ago and immediately knew this town was home. One of the first things she did was walk to the library to get her library card!  Having a pile of books next to a comfy reading chair is still a joy for her.  

With a background as a horticulturist, a waitress, a mother of two kids and a few animals, she's nurtured both plants and patience!  She is retired from full time work, but now spends her days training dogs and their people, playing in the dirt and avoiding housework. A lifelong creative, Donna enjoys spending time crafting, sewing, painting and procrastibaking.

The library has long been one of her constants in life.  As a child in rural Pennsylvania, having the book mobile come every other week to her tiny town was a highlight!  She could be found in the summer under a tree by the babbling crick completely engrossed in the books she chose.  She worked at the library in high school and college and has been a substitute at the circulation desk in the Amesbury and Merrimac libraries.  

Donna is happy to work with the Friends of the Library and hopes to help others discover all the Amesbury Library has to offer to its lucky residents.

Peg grew up in Salem, Massachusetts and has always been an avid reader. She and her husband moved to Amesbury in 1987 with their two young children. She has three wonderful granddaughters (all teenagers now). Peg has wonderful memories of spending many hours with them at the Amesbury Public Library choosing great books and participating in so many of the amazing children’s activities.

Peg worked as a paralegal at the law firm in the Danvers/Peabody area for over 30 years before heading back to school to earn her teaching certification. She began volunteering and then substituting at Amesbury Elementary School in 2014 and became the long-term substitute Librarian in February, 2018. She was then hired as the permanent Librarian at Amesbury Elementary School from 2018 through 2023, when AES closed. During that final year at AES, she packed up and moved the school library over to the new Jordan Shay Memorial Lower Elementary School and was the Librarian at Shay for the 2023-2024 school year, retiring at the end of that school year. During her years as a school librarian, it brought her great joy to share so many great books and stories with her students and to foster a love of reading with them.

Peg is excited about being a part of the Friends and helping to spread the word about our amazing library and the wonderful things it offers to our community.

Jen Lawlor grew up in Reading, MA and moved to Amesbury 2 years ago and has completely fallen in love with the community.  One of the first things she did after her move was get a library card.  Her love of libraries and a desire to give back to the community brought her to our board.

After receiving her B.A. in Commercial Art at Notre Dame College in Manchester, NH Jen's work has included freelance interior decorating, product development and sales for publisher Graphique de France, administrative support and event coordinating for the Addison Gallery of American Art,  annual fund and membership management for the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, and the Trustees of Reservation, and social sales management and wedding coordinating for the Andover Inn and The Chapel at West Parish. Jen currently works for the Town of Andover as the Office Administrator for their very busy Recreation Department where she loves the teamwork and collaboration in her work assisting parents, supporting her co-workers, and coordinating events.  (And yes, it can be similar to the show Parks and Rec!)

In addition to her love of reading, she loves crafting and sewing (her specialty is hand-embroidered and beaded ornaments), discovering nature trails, visiting museums, historic homes, vintage and antique shops, and botanical gardens, traveling, spending time at beaches and lakes, and taking trips to Maine to visit friends. She gets together regularly with her siblings and is an auntie and 'fairy godmother' to many.