"THE BOOK STOPS HERE: Just How Public Is Our Public Library?"

My first cover story for East Side Monthly, appearing in the December, 2005 issue:

"I LOVE MY LIBRARY," everyone says. "I believe in the Library." "I've given money to the Library."

"I love my work," say the Providence Public Library employees. "I love my job." "I love what I do."

Yet these same people are angry. They're bursting with stories, charging injustice, betrayal, high-handedness, underhandedness, elitism. But few are willing to give their names. "This is off the record," they say. Or, "Please don't print that—they'll know who said it."

With eleven branches—a lot for a city this size—the PPL faces the constant challenge of responding to a diverse population's changing needs. Four years ago, PPL was the second-ever recipient (in the category of "urban libraries") of the coveted National Award for Library Service, given to "outstanding libraries that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities." Some of the PPL's many outreach programs currently include literacy classes for immigrants of all ages; job training for youth; multi-lingual educational materials for teachers, students, and parents; long-term bulk loans to public schools; and book-bearing visits to day care providers. In recognition of these and other programs, the PPL will be featured in an upcoming report on urban libraries prepared by Libraries for the Future, a national organization for the preservation and renewal of libraries.

Still, on the home front, the Library has been mired in controversy. This past September, after a rancorous fight, library workers voted to unionize for the first time in PPL's 127-year history. And in early November, the Providence City Council was poised to pass an ordinance that would have allowed the City to appoint a third of the Library's 33 trustees. Introduced by Councilman David Segal and co-sponsored by Rita Williams, Miguel Luna, and Council President John Lombardi, the legislation would have required any private or "quasi-public" (Segal's term for the PPL) organization that gets more than a million dollars from the City's General Fund to have public representation on its Board. When the Library threatened to reject the City's annual $3 million if the ordinance passed—a threat that many have called a bluff—the motion was tabled for thirty days until everyone could figure out what to do next.

HISTORY

The PPL is unusual—though not unique—in that, originally funded solely by private money, it now gets over half its annual operating funds from the City and State. Still, its Director reports to a privately appointed Board of Trustees, and the PPL's mission statement declares: "The Providence Public Library is a private, nonprofit corporation providing public library services to the City of Providence and the State of Rhode Island."

Patricia Raub, who currently heads the grassroots Library Reform Group and also teaches American Studies at Providence College and UMass Boston, has (with the help of Elaine Heebner) written a booklet entitled "Unsettled Accounts: A Brief History of the Financial Relationship between Providence Public Library and Its Public Donors" (expected to be available soon in the Central Library's Rhode Island Collection). The title gives away the plot, introduced thus: "...[F]luctuations in the level of city and state funding have often left library officials feeling helpless, unable to control or even predict public contributions from year to year, even though library expenses have constantly risen. Frustration and anger on the part of library administrators have sparked resentment by city and state officials, who perhaps have felt that the library should have been grateful for whatever financial support it has received, and more understanding of the many conflicting demands upon limited public revenues. Consequently, the relationship between library and public officials has often been an ambivalent one."

At no time has this relationship been more unsettled than now.

BOARD MEETINGS AND MAKEUP

Making the Providence Public Library "more public, open, and responsive," is the goal of the Library Reform Group created in 2004. Member Linda Kushner brings up recent cuts in the book budget, acknowledging that the Library might well have decided to shift money to other priorities such as construction (several locations have lately undergone renovations). Kushner's point: "These are important decisions. The community needs involvement and needs to be told beforehand."

One recent reform is that PPL—after moving its endowment and fundraising mechanism to a separate legal entity that's exempt from public scrutiny—is required to comply with the Open Meetings Law. Notices of upcoming Board meetings are posted at the Central Library on Empire Street, at the City Clerk's office, on the Secretary of State's website, and on the PPL website, where a link to "Upcoming Library Meetings" generally yields the message, "No meetings are scheduled at this time," because, as Reform Group head Raub points out, the Library "is not posting notices more than the required 48 hours in advance. We are having to watch the websites every day."

Some maintain that the new compliance is "not really meaningful," since few trustees actually attend meetings (only 9 are needed for a quorum), and, in the words of one observer, "those who were there didn't ask many questions. It doesn't look like it's a really active Board." Kushner reports that a meeting she attended, "including six minutes of public comment, took fifty minutes, and the Treasurer's Report had no figures in it." A former PPL Trustee who asked not to be named says, "We were never told anything," and can recall "no serious policy issues" under discussion in several years on the Board.

Kushner praises the PPL for having recently appointed more Providence residents as trustees. But she would like to see "publicly appointed members who represent different libraries in different areas of the City, such as members of Friends groups, to bring to the Board some of the real-life experience of being a library patron." PPL Librarian Margaret Chevian can recall only a handful of trustees, in her 42 years, whom she would describe as "regular users of the Library."

Councilman David Segal pushed for open Library Board meetings as well as last year's resolution requiring the PPL to submit quarterly financial reports to the Council. Asked about the effectiveness of this so far, Segal says, "It lets them know we're paying close attention. We're still concerned about having a top-heavy administration that gets significant raises while the rank-and-file workers see no raises and no—or negative—changes in their benefits."

UNIONIZATION

In spring 2004, citing years of level City and State funding, the Library announced upcoming layoffs and cuts in hours and services. A group of library workers formed the Providence Public Library Defense, which urged citizens to sign petitions, attend meetings and rallies, write letters, contact trustees and donors—even at one point rally outside Library Director Dale Thompson's East Side home and plaster her neighborhood with flyers. A related online discussion group called "Save PPL" vowed "to shine light upon the lies and manipulations of the Providence Public Library board of Trustees and administration." One message accused the administration of having "the nerve to give themselves close to half a million dollars in pay raises over 5 years while asking staff to take non-paid vacations." (Thompson's salary rose from $99,962 in 1998 to $142,800 by 2004. There are nine other administrators listed on the PPL website. A full-time clerk with decades of experience currently earns about $25,000, a veteran rank-and-file librarian about twice that.)

When the smoke cleared, the citizens and public library employees of Providence appeared to have won a few concessions. After initial projections of as high as 60, only 21 staffers, including 7 librarians, lost their jobs—besides all the PPL janitors, whose work became outsourced. Most of the 21 had accepted "voluntary" severance packages. Branch hours didn't suffer; cuts in hours and services were concentrated within the Central Library's reference department.

But morale stood at an all-time low. How things were done angered people as much as what. Laid off workers had no hint of their termination date until an announcement, at 2 p.m. one day, that this was it. Many of the retained workers were told to report to different locations the next time they showed up for work. According to staff, since then they have continued to feel powerless and ill-treated, with some made to divide their work time among several branches, and many locations severely short-staffed. This spring, citing a fifth straight year of level funding from the City, the PPL did cut branch hours. And with rumors of further cuts—and even branch closings— spreading by autumn, the hundred PPL workers (including 20 librarians) voted to unionize.

"Other times the union issue came up, I spoke against it," recalls Margaret Chevian, who's worked at PPL since 1963. "I still feel unions just add another layer of bureaucracy. But this time, our backs were against the wall. We had no choice."

COMMUNICATION

Several sources attribute a "closed-door policy" to Dale Thompson, who came from California to become Assistant Director in 1980 and was promoted to Director in 1987. "She'll never talk to you."

The PPL website lists the Director's phone number.

"Dale Thompson," says a pleasant voice.

I state my purpose, reminding her that we met recently at the funeral of my father-in-law, a PPL Trustee Emeritus. She says she's so glad I called. We make an appointment for a face-to-face interview the following week.

Within two hours of leaving a message for the head of the Board of Trustees, I get voicemail from PPL Marketing Director Tonia Mason, confirming my appointment with Thompson and adding, "... Mary Olenn who's our Chairman has told us that you had called her, also, she'd gotten the message, but I told her that I would give you a call since you're talking with Dale, I told her not to bother calling you back, because Dale is going to be our primary spokesperson at this time..."

In contrast, nearly all the community activists and employees contacted for this article have volunteered names and numbers of more "people you should talk to."

Under the heading "COMMUNICATION," the website of The Devin Group, hired by the PPL during the union organizing, states, "Consistently, communication appears as one of the top three items that needs improvement in every organization... Regardless of the reasons why, we all must find a way to communicate... Not just distribute information, but communicate in such a way that people reach an understanding." (Pro-union PPL employees quickly identified Devin as a "union-buster," not just a consultant hired to improve communication and morale, as the administration initially called him. "We can't imagine that Mark Devin's time is cheap," declares the PPL union website, "and so that makes us wonder where a cash strapped institution finds the funds to hire such a man.")

"The Providence Public Library is a very closed, opaque institution," says library patron Sheri Griffin in recounting the 2004 fate of the then-nascent Friends of Fox Point. Upon learning of the proposed cuts, this group circulated a petition (which Griffin says gathered 2,000 signatures in ten days) asking the administration to meet with patrons before implementing changes. "They didn't call any of us," Griffin recalls. "My phone number was on all the petitions." Instead, in what she calls a "paranoid response," she got a two-page document headed "Friends of the Providence Public Library," outlining a "Goal" ("To work in partnership with the trustees and staff ... The Friends, as an auxiliary organization, are not authorized to set Library policy, speak on behalf of the Library's Board of Trustees or commit Library funds."); listing "Example [sic] of Friends activities," and setting rules for "Implementation." After much internal controversy—several members "just wanted to have 'book & bake' sales and buy some shelves"—the Friends of Fox Point declined to sign and disbanded (but are rumored to have reorganized under a different name).

The Friends agreement "makes sense—I can't criticize it too much," says Richard Robbins, a retired librarian who's been instrumental in getting Friends groups started in Pawtucket and Warwick. Last year Robbins helped organize "Friends of the Library," intended to serve not any particular branch but the whole PPL—a group that, like Griffin's, fell apart due in part to controversy over whether to sign the agreement. "While our group was called 'Friends of the Library,' that was really a misnomer," Robbins recalls. "It was a protest group. It should've been called 'Enemies of the Library Administration.'" But, Robbins admits, "I cannot be friendly towards the current administration, because they have been inconsiderate of the staff... If there were ever a new administration there, I'd be interested in being a real Friend of the Library."

STATE FUNDING

"Among the most generous in the country," is how Anne Parent, Chief of Library Services for the State Office of Library and Information Services ("OLIS"), describes Rhode Island's funding policy for public libraries. This fiscal year, PPL is receiving $746,501, representing 25% of the tax-based funds it got from its own municipality two years ago; plus $575,246, representing 25% of what it spent on operating costs out of its endowment income (PPL lobbied for this new funding mandate, which benefits mainly itself and Westerly, the only RI libraries with big endowments). The State also partially reimburses construction costs, not considered operating expenses.

Besides the above percentages—which every "qualifying" RI public library is entitled to—the PPL alone receives funding for a Statewide Reference Resource Center. The 2004 cuts targeted this SRRC when its state funding remained level. OLIS maintains, in a Q&A page on its Libraries of Rhode Island ("LORI") website, that "every RI public library welcomes nonresident walk-ins and telephone reference questions," and that while "the breadth, depth, and specialization of Providence's collections" behooves the State to give them special support, the OLIS contribution is "a state subsidy for services that would be provided in any event, rather than a 'quid pro quo' dollar-for-dollar payment for specific services." Anticipating a 2006 legislative commission "to look at the future of all RI libraries," Parent now hopes "the statewide role of the PPL" will be a particular topic of discussion.

Currently up to $924,116, the State's contribution to the SRRC brings its total funding of PPL operating costs to over $2 million in 2005-6. OLIS and PPL negotiate an annual contract for the SRRC, posted on the LORI website. Despite OLIS's repudiation of a "quid pro quo" arrangement, the most recent contract posted (2004) gets down to the nitty-gritty, specifying several minimums: hours the Center is to be open, courses and workshops to be offered, visits of staff to other libraries, etc.

Asked if the City has any plans to negotiate a similar contract, Providence Mayor David Cicilline says, "I don't believe that's necessary," pointing out that the PPL is a separate nonprofit organization run by "people who are experts at administering and managing libraries... I'm not proposing that the City manage the Library—that's a function and responsibility of the Board." He does, however, say he supports the concept of adding publicly appointed members to that Board.

THOMPSON SPEAKS

The interview with Dale Thompson takes place at the Rochambeau branch, on the same day a Projo Metro section front-page article proclaims the standoff over the Board composition. Beginning outside, a tall, smiling Dale Thompson in sunglasses points out architectural features of the original building and the recent addition, towards which the Friends of Rochambeau raised over $100,000. "We own all the buildings, they're not City-owned," she says, proceeding inside. In the community room where a Friends of Rochambeau Book Sale is doing a brisk business, there's a portrait of Elodie Farnum, the child-prodigy violinist who died at 13 in 1915, prompting her benefactors to found Rochambeau with the money raised for her European debut.

The tour of the branch continues: conference space for community meetings; technology center for computer training classes ("all free, and all privately funded ... high speed internet access through the generosity of the Champlin Foundation"); main reading room with its new "open sightlines"; teen area; Russian collection "for the growing number of immigrants in the community"; and finally the upstairs children's section. The branch is full of patrons, all ages and colors. A man in a yarmulke types at a computer terminal. Another man reads a Russian newspaper. Thompson warmly greets a mother and toddler who climb the stairs to return picture books.

Seated at a kiddie-sized table in "Vicky's Reading Room" (named for the late library advocate, Senator Victoria Lederberg), Thompson doesn't stop talking, except for an occasional sip from her Dasani bottle, until she's finished describing every one of the programs on her written list: intergenerational Family Literacy ("now privately funded by five or six different sources"); Cradle to Crayons ("funded through private funds"—also connected to a federally funded program headed by Ready to Learn Providence); LARKS (Learning and Reading Kits) in English and Spanish; "Mother Goose Asks Why"; the 2nd grade library card campaign ("private funding to give every child a book" when s/he signs up for a card); Book Buddies volunteers; TeenPOWer ("corporate support plus private donor challenge grants" to pay high school juniors and seniors—who hang out at the library anyway—to read to younger kids and help patrons on the computers); curriculum support for schoolteachers (Eisenhower Grants); the Verizon "Whiz Kids" program, including a grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to teach filmmaking; ten bilingual Americorps volunteers (federally funded) ...

Interview time is running out. Thompson readily states the endowment size: between 35 and 36 million, with a spending policy of 6% ("We know it's high, and it needs to be lowered"). From Elodie Farnum to Verizon, the message of the past two hours is clear: The Providence Public Library has many funders that are not the City of Providence or the State of Rhode Island.

Asked about the brinksmanship reported in today's Projo, Thompson unveils some news: this very morning, she signed a contract with two consultants, Synthesis Partnership, a Providence firm that "works with organizations facing or creating change," according to its website; and Dubberly Garcia Associates, Inc., specifically a library consulting firm based in Atlanta and Denver. They've been hired—with funding from the Rhode Island Foundation, solicited jointly by the Library and City—to help facilitate the Strategic Planning Process already begun this past year with community meetings at every PPL branch. Expected to come up with a 5-year plan by spring—in time for the next budget cycle—the "planning team" will include 5 members from the Library (Thompson, 2 trustees and 2 staff members); 5 from the City (Director of Policy Gary Bliss; City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez, who already holds Cicilline's ex officio seat on the Board; Providence After-School Alliance head Hillary Salmons; and two City Council members); and five from the community whose identities are (or were, at the time of this writing) still to be determined. "We need to develop consensus among all partners around these issues: what our crucial services and programs are, and how to provide them with the available resources," says Thompson. "We want to be communicating all during the process about what's going on—keep everyone informed so everything is clear."

QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

By the time you read this, news of the Strategic Planning team will have been widely publicized. Key players will have indicated whether this satisfies them for now; all the members will have been named, and observers will probably complain that too many are 02906ers. Governor Carcieri may even have appointed a State representative to the PPL Board—something he's been entitled to do but never has. And the real questions and issues will still lie ahead.

Questions for the Board, like one prompted by a perusal of PPL promotional materials, including the 2005 Annual Report with its financial statement listing almost a million private dollars for "Organizational Restructuring (Restricted)." This calls to mind the 2004 brouhaha, when the administrative salaries that came under attack were defended as privately funded, while the longstanding SRRC was placed at the mercy of State budget constraints. How is it that so much private money is specifically designated for cherished items, while the public money—much of which the Library has just threatened to reject—seems to go for basics like keeping workers' salaries paid and buildings open?

A question for outside donors: Why not become a local hero by funding these ordinary, everyday things the people of Rhode Island rely on?

And here's one for everybody: What will it take to get all these Library lovers—who've so far demonstrated their passion and commitment through angry voices, antagonistic websites, letters, rallies, meetings, petitions, labor and legislative battles—to start working with, rather than against, the PPL leadership?