A message from the Providence Community Library Friends Groups to the Providence Public Library, “Turn the people’s buildings over to the city now!”

The Providence Community Library (PCL) Friends Groups will rally to call the public’s attention to the Providence Public Library’s blatant refusal to transfer the nine neighborhood library branches over to the City of Providence — despite the Providence Public Library’s pledge to do so two years ago when PCL stepped in to rescue those libraries from closure.

The City’s two-year lease with Providence Public Library expires on July 1. The City has sued Providence Public Library over its failure to properly maintain the buildings and to negotiate the transfer of the buildings in “good faith.”

Without Providence Public Library agreeing to finally transfer the buildings as promised, PCL can’t secure the grants necessary to support much-needed repairs to the branches — and the future of the community libraries may be in jeopardy. Rally in front of PPL tomorrow (Thursday) at 5pm to support PCL and demand that PPL turn the buildings over to the people!

5pm, Thursday, May 12, Providence Public Library, 150 Empire Street

Who hasn’t thought that. Not About the Buildings and the Providence Athenaeum present The Scrivener-In, a marathon reading of Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street and Poe’s The Raven, with discussion. Hear Poe read where Poe once walked.

Poe’s poem The Raven, published in 1845, made him famous and inspired praise, parody, and a craze for the phrase “Nevermore.” Melville’s story Bartleby the Scrivener: a Story of Wall Street, published eight years later, also featured a narrator whose existence is interrupted by the arrival of a mysteriously implacable agent who replies to any inquiries or pleas for explanation with a single, unhelpful answer, in Bartleby’s case, “I would prefer not to.” Melville and Poe traveled on the edges of the same writerly circles, Melville was known to have read Poe, and no alert person of the era could have escaped the phrase “Nevermore.” Is Bartleby an homage to The Raven? A parody? A coincidental echo? We’ll read aloud these two singular, nearly contemporary works, consider their similarities and differences, and ponder the question of influence. This event is part 4 of the Athenaeum’s “Hark! The White Whale!” series.

Free and open to the public, Thursday, April 21, refreshments and sign-up-to-read at 5pm, reading starts at 5:30pm, Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street, 421.6970

From the fabulous Christina Bevilaqua,

Join us to write and read aloud extremely short (200-word) personal memoirs based on a question to be posed by our workshop facilitator, the noted short-short prose pioneer Karen Donovan, as the session begins. Participants will experience both the rigors and elation of writing short-short prose, and the reading aloud segment will be buoyed by the energy of surprise and speed. The more diverse the writing is, the more exciting the readings will be, so bring your parents, your children, and your friends, old and young. Workshop made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Free and open to the public!

Sponsor: Vintage Pens. Co-presented with Not About the Buildings. Refreshments from 5pm to 5:30pm.

Free, 5pm to 8pm, Thursday, March 31, Open to the public, Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street

Providence Public Library
1st Floor – The Children’s Room
150 Empire Street, Providence, RI 02903

Thursday, December 30, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

In celebration of the generous donation from Fidelity Investments, WaterFire welcomes Steve Kidd, Education Director & Resident Actor of the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, to engage the audience with his reading of The WaterFire Duck.

Everyone is invited and encouraged to join in on the fun. Books will be available for purchase at the event and personalization by author, Kiki Latimer, illustrator, Bunny Griffeth and WaterFire Creator, Barnaby Evans. more »

On Wednesday, December 8th, Providence Community Library and Walker Mettling present “100 Very Short Stories” at the Knight Memorial Library.

Ten writers will be reading 100 very, very SHORT stories which will also be illustrated live by Jean Cozzens!

The readers are: Kevin Delaney, Joanna Howard, Jenny Nichols, Louis Haling, Bobby Casey, Jenine Bressner, Jack Wilmarth, Shane Farrell, Bridgette Larmena & Nik Perry.

There is a small (short?) suggested donation of $4 at the door, all proceeds will go directly to funding the purchase of supplies for Providence Community Library’s “Comics Consortium” children’s program.

6pm, Wednesday, December 8, Knight Memorial Library, 275 Elmwood Avenue

Tesco Vee: the man, the myth, the legend behind the utterly classic Touch and Go fanzine (and thus, Touch and Go, the record label) will be appearing at Knight Memorial Library Saturday at 1pm.

In support of the recently published complete anthology of Touch and Go zine, Tesco will be reading, discussing, presenting a slide show history, signing copies and hanging out with us for a bit. Guaranteed to be a great time!

1pm, Saturday, November 13th, Knight Library, 275 Elmwood Avenue

…And that’s not an easy thing to do.

The petulant patricians who drove the Providence Public Library into the ground had harsh words for David Cicilline this week.  (I like to think the PPL honchos have had similar words for me in private over the years.)  After decades of funding the miserably mismanaged, privately owned, “Public” Library, the City got fed up, and shifted its funds to the wonderful and communitarian Providence Community Library.  But the debate about what to do with the buildings bleeds on.

Calling Mayor David N. Cicilline a “petulant child,” the Providence Public Library on Monday said a recently filed city lawsuit attempting to resolve needed repair work at the city’s library buildings was “baseless” and “harassing.”

The library, which operated the city’s nine branch libraries until last year, accuses the city and the new operator of its branch system, the Providence Community Library, of mounting a campaign to damage the PPL and “plunder its assets.”

The statements were in response to a city lawsuit filed last week in Superior Court in Providence.

The suit argues that the Providence Public Library is in breach of contract for failing to make required repairs to the library buildings, seven of which it still owns and leases to the city for a $1 a year.

Coucilman Luis Aponte takes them to task over here.

Has it already been a year?

It may be hard to remember, but one year ago the fate of Providence’s neighborhood libraries was uncertain. Providence Community Library was planning to take over management of the nine libraries and keep them all open for the benefit of all the people of Providence, but there remained a number of critical open issues that had to be addressed. Luckily for all, and thanks to the hard work of many, those issues were successfully addressed and our nine neighborhood libraries all opened their doors on July 1, 2009.

To celebrate that anniversary, Thursday, July 1^st will be a Fine Amnesty Day for overdue materials. Patrons can return overdue materials at any of PCL’s nine neighborhood locations throughout Providence and our Library Police will waive your late fees! This applies to materials that have not yet gone into collections and are brought in-person to the circulation desk.

In addition to waiving fines all day long, PCL and our nine Friends groups will be having a birthday cake cutting at each of our locations at 4:30pm, as well as other forms of entertainment! Click here for a complete listing of celebrations by location! COME ON OUT!

Ever dreamed of churning out your life story but never had the time?

Your problems will be solved tonight at the Providence Athenaeum, where a roomful of people will get thirty minutes to write their story in 200 words or less.  Everybody can, if they want to, read their story out loud afterwards and, if you want, your stories will be archived at the Athenaeum and on the Not About The Buildings website.  Micro-Memoir!’s co-presented by the Athenaeum and Not About The Buildings; the first one we did in March was actually amazingly fun, though I suppose I am sort of biased about these things.

It’s all ages; at the last one we had high school kids and senior citizens and people from every decade in-between.  The action starts at 5:30, but the space opens at 5 for wine and snacks.  And, of course, since it’s a library you can show up even earlier than that.

Providence Athenaeum
251 Benefit Street
Friday, 5:30pm
free

After a few years in disrepair/bureaucratic limbo, the Washington Park Library re-opened in historic Firehouse No. 11 on May 6, 2009, less than two months before its ownership transitioned from the anxious-to-close Providence Public Library to the anxious-to-stay open Providence Community Library.  To celebrate one year of (renewed) existence, there’s a celebration tomorrow from 6-8pm at the library, which is located at 1316 Broad Street, in the relative vicinity of the entrance to Roger Williams Park.  It’s sponsored by the still-looking-for-members Friends of the Washington Park Library, and rumor has it that there will be an endless supply of fancy cupcakes.

Thursday, 6pm to 8pm, 1316 Broad Street

The Providence Community Library — among the city’s most worthy causes — is holding a fundraising gala and auction.

A Night at Knight

You are invited…
to a gala celebration of books and art in Providence to celebrate the creation of Providence Community Library and to benefit its nine neighborhood libraries

When and where…
{ Friday, March 26, 2010 } { 7:00 to 10:00pm }
{ Knight Memorial Library } { 275 Elmwood Avenue, Providence }

What…
delicious hors d’oeuvres & cocktails; intriguing auction with storyteller Valerie Tutson; intimate tours of the building; valet parking

more »

Come out and join us Thursday, March 25th, at 7pm at the Rochambeau Library in Providence to celebrate the life of Rhode Island’s noted sci-fi and horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft.

We’ll be having a free, public showing of the 2005 black and white, silent version of “The Call of Cthulhu” directed by Andrew Leman of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Certainly one of, if not the, best and most faithful film adaptations of a Lovecraft story yet!

Your host for the evening will be local mentalist and mindbender Rory Raven and there will be free pizza on hand courtesy of The Nice Slice.

7pm, Thursday, Rochambeau Library, 708 Hope Street

As always, PDD readers should feel free to attend for free. The Athenaeum is at the intersection of Benefit and College Streets.

Friday, 5pm-7pm

Part Twelve: WRNI’s political team, Scott MacKay and Ian Donnis, on the switch from print to radio journalism, and the changing media landscape.

MacKay reported on politics for the Providence Journal for many years; Donnis was the news editor of the Providence Phoenix for a decade. They now make up the political reporting and analysis team at WRNI Public Radio. Join them for a conversation about how the medium affects the way a story is reported, today’s ever-changing media landscape, and to hear some of the best yarns ever about RI politics. Strictly off the record, of course!

Friday, 5pm, The Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street

I just got this appeal from the PCL, which, as explained below, has been doing an awesome job since it took over operations of Providence’s libraries this summer:

Whether you give online or by mail, whether you give for the pure pleasure of supporting something good  or for the pleasure plus the tax deduction, please do not for get to send your check or go on line to support the Providence Community Library.

In the 6 months since we took over the nine neighborhood libraries library use has increased greatly.  Circulation statistics for all nine libraries in September show an increase of 13% over the previous September, a 21% increase over the previous October and a 24.5 % increase over the prior November. The door count from September –November at just two of the smaller libraries that were slated to be closed by PPL show 14,400 at Smith Hill over 16,000 at Washington Park. Clearly neighborhood libraries are, needed cherished and very much used by the community.

Many of you witnessed the early efforts to establish this system and all of you value community libraries. Please help us keep the libraries open and thriving by sending a check to Providence Community Library, P.O. Box 9267 Prov. RI 02904 or go on line and click on “Support Us” on our website.