Whose library is it, anyway? (continued)

DALE THOMPSON, who has worked at the library for 24 years, the last 16 of them as its director, says contrary to charges of aloofness, the library is closely connected to the city and its many ethnically diverse and economically distressed neighborhoods. The board, for example, has made a concerted effort to bring in as trustees members of Nigerian, Liberian, Cambodian, Dominican, and Hispanic communities, and thus the panel reflects the concerns of library users.

Thompson says the library’s major commitment is to serving the city’s neighborhoods through a system of 10 branches, just one of which is the downtown Central Library. "The premise of all of the decisions we are making is that our first priority is public service, and public service as it relates to serving the children and families of Providence," she says. "We primarily are a neighborhood, branch-based library system."

Thus, when library officials were told last winter about a projected $1 million deficit, their first instinct was to protect the branches.

This commitment to the neighborhoods — possibly at the expense of the downtown operation — was cemented by another public uproar about library cuts more than a decade ago, Thompson says.

In 1992, facing financial shortfalls, the system proposed closing six of the branches, she says. Citywide outrage reversed those decisions, and since then, she says, the library has been on an extensive capital campaign to invigorate the branches, spending more than $8 million to revamp the Rochambeau branch on the East Side and one in South Providence. It is about to upgrade the landmark Knight Memorial branch on Elmwood Avenue, a projected $6 million makeover.

More than cosmetics are involved in this focus on the branches. The libraries have become "hubs" in the city’s efforts to provide safe, literacy-based after-school havens for children, Thompson says, and they host varying programs, such as "Cradle to Crayons," aimed at one-to-three-year-olds and their parents, and LEAP (Library’s Enriching After-school Programs" for children eight and older.

In a sense, the library has undertaken a role to which many of the city’s politicians have given only lip service — rejuvenating the capital city by bolstering its neighborhoods. By contrast, the nationally acclaimed Providence "Renaissance" has focused on the city’s downtown.

Library officials don’t reject the importance of the reference services, says Thompson, who cites her own background as a reference librarian, and that she well understands the depth and excellence of the downtown collections. In dealing with the projected deficit, she says the administration decided, for the first time, to tailor services to reflect the sources of funding that actually pay for them.

As a result, about $2 million earned from the library’s $35 million endowment, plus other private donations and grants, would go to community programs, as well as administration and capital expenses, Thompson says. More than $5 million in city and state funds would operate the branches. The reference service would be financed solely through a special $880,100 state allocation.

At the same time, the library asked the city for $685,000 more than its usual $3 million contribution, but the city declined, which Thompson said was understandable, given the city’s weak finances.

One problem, she says, is that it costs the library at least $1 million more to operate the reference center than it receives from the state reference grant. Given the projected deficit, the trustees decided to scale back the downtown references service, but through tight budgeting, leave the branches untouched. The result was last month’s elimination of seven of the 14 reference librarians, the layoff of 14 support staffers, the big cut in downtown hours, the outsourcing of the janitors — and a new and furious public outcry.

NONE OF THOSE in the debate dispute the importance of the Providence library’s reference collections. Cranston librarian Elizabeth Johnson, for example, got her professional start at the Central Library.

"They were the first library to establish an art department," she says. Johnson says the collections include numerous government documents, such as trademark and patent information. One section is devoted to business. Historic Rhode Island information includes an index of Providence Journal stories unduplicated even by the newspaper itself. As a result, Johnson says, other libraries often consult the Providence staff and send patrons to Providence for records than can be found only at the Central Library.

This is why the state in 1989 designated the Providence library as its official "Statewide Reference Resource Center," supported with what is now a $880,110 grant. An annual contract with the state obligates Providence to provide backup reference service to the state’s other libraries, train other librarians, and field telephone and e-mail inquiries, including those from state government’s "RI.gov" Internet link. But one of the key controversies is whether the state grant — as the library contends — should cover the Central Library’s entire reference service.

Thompson points to a state law that says, "The state shall provide from state and federal revenue sources 100 percent of the funding for the following statewide library services," starting with the Providence reference center.

Yet others say the state grant is meant to only acknowledge the statewide use of the library’s unique reference system, and isn’t intended to cover services that the library would provide on its own. "This office considers the grant to be a stipend, a subsidy of a service that would be provided anyway for the city residents," says Anne Parent, whose office oversees the annual grant. The East Providence, Cranston, and Warwick libraries have reference operations, Parent says, and they don’t get special funds from the state, even though their services are provided to anyone regardless of residence.

But Thompson points to the "100 percent" promise of the state law, noting how the Providence library has been telling the state for years that it costs $1.8 million to $2 million a year — not $880,110 — to operate the center.

Johnson, the Cranston information services librarian, agrees with Parent. "This is a mission of the library," Johnson says. "The service should be, and would be, provided anyway."

Librarians acknowledge that library reference services have been generally changing in recent years. The number of requests to libraries has fallen, while use of home computers has risen to get information over the Internet. State numbers show that requests to the Statewide Reference Resource Center last year totaled about 72,000, compared to 112,000 in 1998.

But one of the seven librarians whose jobs were eliminated tells the Phoenix that the numbers are misleading, because technology has made reference counseling more complex, not simpler. In the pre-Internet era, a reference librarian might have spent just a few minutes guiding a patron toward a particular book. Now, a librarian might need 30 minutes explaining Internet uses, or telling a patron frustrated with a fruitless nightlong Internet search for material that the information is only available in printed form at the library.

The former librarian, who declined to give her name because of the severance pay gag order, says the reference cutbacks could frustrate patrons and put added stress on the remaining staff. "There is just no way you can continue to do everything we were doing before," she says, adding that librarians spend "a lot of off-desk time" in addition to answering direct reference questions, such as developing and maintaining the library collections.

The former librarian fears that backups will be particularly acute when schools and colleges reopen in the fall, and that computer self-help isn’t the answer. "People kind of say that patrons can do all of these things on their own, that they are one ‘click’ away," the ex-staffer says. "But it’s not the case."