The Transition Begins

There’s been a crazy whirlwind of news surrounding the Providence Public Library lately, and I’m sorry I haven’t been reporting on it as attentively as I should have.

Library trustees voted on Thursday to start transitioning the nine neighborhood branches to the City.  At the same time, they suggested closing the Central library to the public, because, according to library spokesman Tonia Mason, the PPL would not be able to adequately staff the Central Library if the city gave all its money to the branches.  The logic here is completely insane; in addition to the fact that the Central Library is the go-to branch for anyone who lives or works downtown, the idea that a hundred-and-twenty year-old non-profit library with a thirty-plus million dollar endowment could not raise the money to keep one building open to the public is ridiculous.  Especially since they’ve already cut back staff once in 2004 (in a move that led to the formation of the Library Reform Group and the unionization of employees.)

The Library plans to issue pink slip to nearly all staff this week; the branch librarians will presumably become city employees after June 30, and according to the PPL’s plan only twenty-one employees will be retained downtown.  Since it hasn’t yet been determined which twenty-one people would be retained, the PPL is obligated by the union to issue 60-day notices to everyone, regardless of whether they’re eventually laid off or not.

You can read about this all in Library Journal, the ProJo and in Providence Business News.  You can see an interview with Tonia Mason on Channel 10 here.

[Thanks to Patricia Raub for all the articles; if you're interested, the Library Reform Group periodically sends out newsletters that are a little more timely than I am.]