OPEN MEETINGS Bill targets public input at Providence Public Library BY STEVEN STYCOS

Libraries in Rhode Island that receive state aid would be required to comply with the state’s open meeting law under a bill introduced by House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox (D-Providence), and other key legislators. The move, while impacting all public libraries, is aimed at the Providence Public Library, which is operated by a nonprofit corporation and receives much of its operating funds from the state and the city.

The emergence of the bill is among the aftershocks of a July 2004 decision to layoff or offer voluntary buyouts to 21 of the library’s 200 workers, and a physical reorganization of the downtown Central Library, where operating hours and the reference staff were cut back. The library made the changes in response to what it says was lack of adequate funding from the city and the state. Critics not only deplored the moves as damaging the library’s vaunted reference operation, but also complained there wasn’t enough public discussion of the moves (see "Whose library is it, anyway?" News, August 6, 2004).

Unable to reverse the changes, the critics have been trying to operate on two fronts: one is to ensure that trustees’ and other meetings be open to the public; and to place city and state representatives and ordinary library patrons on the library board.

Patricia Raub, a leader of the Library Reform Group, says its members met earlier with legislators to urge filing of the open meetings bill. "We don’t want to have major decision being made without input from patrons," says Raub, who is a part-time professor at Providence College and the University of Massachusetts.

Tonia Mason, a spokeswoman for the library, tells the Phoenix in an e-mail, "We are aware of Majority Leader Fox’s bill regarding libraries and the open meetings law, and of course, we’ll be following this. Since it’s early, we have no comments at this time, but we do plan to meet with him next month to discuss his bill."

The measure has the support of another group, For Our Precious Public Library (FOPPL). "Our goal is to have real people, as it were, on the board of trustees, actual library users," says Rick Robbins, an organizer of the group. He says one appropriate source of candidates would be members of Friends of the Library groups attached to some of the library system’s branches.

Robbins group was formed as a potential Friends of the Central Library, something that the library suggested be delayed during the controversy. Now, some members are approaching the library administration to discuss forming an official friends’ unit. Robbins, who is retired, says he’ll opt out of that group if it is established, citing the years put into such activities, having been director of Warwick and Pawtucket libraries.

The open meetings issue came up last October, when the library and its critics noted that the corporation’s annual meeting was open to the public. But at the time, Mason noted that regular trustees’ meetings were private, although the library was willing to explore changing that, along with more public sector representation.

The library has been holding a series of "community meetings" at its various branches, and posting notes about the sessions on its Web site, www.provlib.org. "We need to inform the City of Providence what city residents want from their library," says a message on the site. "Your opinion counts! "

The next meetings are set for Monday, February 7 at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library; Wednesday, February 16 at 7 p.m. at the Rochambeau branch; and Monday, February 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Washington Park.