Today’s the first day of the Providence Public Library’s annual book sale.  If you want the best books, you can pay $15 to get there at 1 this afternoon, but then it opens to the public at 4.  (nb: I have a feeling the $15 might be worth it, actually, because the books are priced to move and you know what those book dealers are like…)  Tomorrow and Saturday it runs 10-5, and then Sunday it’s only open to non-profits and charities.  Last year I picked up some cool German Agatha Christie translations, as well as a bunch of other things that I’m completely incapable of reading.  Yay!

Tonight’s a book sale and bake sale sponsored by the Friends of the Smith Hill Library.

I really like Smith Hill; it’s in a lovely building (built in the era when libraries were divided into equally large adult and kid sections) and the librarians are really nice; unfortunately, they don’t have much money, and aren’t really equipped to handle the hordes of kids that enter the building every day as soon as school lets out.  And they don’t have air conditioning, which is kind of a drag when they’re forced to close when it gets too hot in the summer.  And they’re only open twenty-five hours a week.

But, you know, that’s why you should go to the book sale.  I’m guessing there will actually be some decent finds for pretty cheap.

Smith Hill Library
31 Candace St
6-8 PM

If you’re reading this and it’s before 10 AM and you’re not at work or otherwise occupied–a longshot, I know–you should head down to the Washington Park Library (1316 Broad Street), where some community members are staging a rally to get the branch opened again.  I posted about the ridiculous situation at Washington Park last month, and it seems like nothing’s changing…

The rally’s being organized by Open Table of Christ, one of several churches in the neighborhood that have been struggling (for two and a half years, now) to see their library reopened.

(And I promise to mention things like this a little more punctually from now on.)

Although it’s so disgustingly humid that I want to die right now (and, this just in, now it’s pouring, too!), I’m heading over to the former Benny’s on Broad Street today at five for the press conference/rally that the Library Reform Group is organizing about the Washington Park library.

<soapbox>Not to repeat myself too much, but the Washington Park Library (which was located in a city-owned building) was closed in January 2005 with just two days’ notice because the (privately-owned) Providence Public Library administration didn’t do anything about a roof leak in the building that they had been aware of since the late nineties.  Alan Shawn Feinstein offered lots of money to fix the roof, and the Library turned it down.  Then, this winter, the city put a new roof on the building.  They also fixed the damage that comes from a decade-old roof leak, removing all the mold and dead pigeons that the building had filled up with.

Service in Washington Park, in the meantime, moved over to the old Benny’s down the street, but there was nothing about that building that ever approached what one might call a library.  It was only open four hours a day, for one thing, and adults weren’t allowed inside.  Really.  Adults Were Not Allowed Inside.   Not to check out books, not to use the computers, and not to ask the librarians for help.

Now, it seems, the Benny’s building is also under foreclosure.

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Today’s July 1st, which marks the beginning of a new fiscal year at the library.  What that means exactly is sort of up for debate; last year library administrators said they wanted a written contract with the city about what services they’d be providing, but then they spent the whole year refusing to agree to anything.

If they don’t sign an agreement soon, the backup plan is to close five branches, in Smith Hill and Olneyville and Wanskuck and Elmwood and Fox Point.  And that’s not counting the Washington Park library, the closed branch that the city just spent Lord knows how much money on, adding a new roof and cleaning out ten years’ worth of mold and dead pigeons; the library administration, for whatever crazy reason, is refusing to reopen the branch, preferring to keep limited services in half of the old Benny’s down the street.

Also very vulnerable is the Fox Point branch, which is the only one of the (open) libraries currently operating on a lease.  The building, on the corner of Wickenden and Ives, isn’t in the best shape–it’s dark and unattractive and not accessible to the handicapped and if anybody tested the air they’d probably find something unsafe about it–but it’s a vital part of the neighborhood, staffed by knowledgeable and friendly people, and it would be a shame if the library decided not to renew their lease without making alternate plans for all the kids, families and senior citizens that use the branch every day.

… let them eat ROCK! Okay, let me get this straight, Ted Widmer, noted historian and director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, was once guitarist Lord Rockingham of the Boston band The Upper Crust? Am I the only one who did not know this? The band is still fopping and rocking, but after the recording of “The Decline and Fall of the Upper Crust” Mr. Widmer left to become a speechwriter for President Clinton. (In all honesty I’m not altogether sure if he is even in the above photo, but does it really matter?)

He may be known to some locals as the trouble-making Martin Van Buren buff biographer who shook up the Atheneum lecture series; or to Slate readers for his Moby diss (thank.. you.. Ted). Today the ProJo ran a profile and a generally favorable review of his new book ‘Ark of the Liberties: America and the World’. I met him once and liked him right away, but now I really really like him.

Let Them Eat Rock is the 2004 Upper Crust documentary featuring Mr. Widmer, as well as the title of their 1995 album.

(photo:Jay Elliot)

From the Library Reform Group:

PPL and the City of Providence were to renew their Memorandum of Agreement for another year by March 31. This date has come and gone and, so far as we know, the agreement has not yet been signed.

PPL is insisting that it will have a $1 million deficit next year if it doesn’t cut its services. [If there really IS the danger of such a huge deficit, which we are not so sure is the case, the Library Reform Group believes that PPL needs to do MUCH more to raise funds, not just threaten to cut services.]

At the March PPL trustees meeting, three options for moving to a sustainable library system were presented…

The Friends of Rochambeau are holding one of their bi-annual book sales, and it’s going on right now through Saturday. I just took a quick look around and there is some pretty good stuff — hardcover and paperbacks as well as A.V. items. It would appear that someone has purged their ‘Star Trek: TNG’ video collection for one thing. And there is an MST3K tape that I would have bought but I already have it. Everything seems to be either 50¢ or $1.

Open today until 5:30PM

Thursday: 1 - 8:30PM

Friday: 10 - 5:30PM

Saturday is fill a bag for $5 day: 10 - 5PM

Rochambeau Library/708 Hope Street/351-3063

Tight!

In a move that’s expected to effect a large percent of my social circle, Brown is going to offer alums library cards, complete with borrowing privileges and all that jazz. It’s been a long time coming, baby!

Alumni borrowers will be able to check out books from the University Library but because of license restrictions, access to our electronic books and journals is restricted to in-library access only.

The free cards will cost only 15$, plus the time it takes you to haul your butt down to the “card office,” whatever that means. Books for all!
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If you happen to be downtown and available Thursday at noon–and, you know, who isn’t?–it’s time again for the monthly meeting of Library trustees. This time around, they’ll be discussing their plans to lay off the seven children’s specialists at the branch libraries. Because, you know, why would a library need someone to deal with the multitudes of children that flood the buildings every afternoon two minutes after school lets out?

Of course, the board will only be discussing that issue (along with other budget concerns, presumably) if they actually show up. At the last meeting, only seven of the thirty or so board members actually bothered to even make an appearance.

Meetings are open to the public, however, and if you want you can even get your two cents in at the end. The meetings are held in the Barnard Room, which you can get to by taking the elevators up to the third floor and taking a right. They’re worth watching at least once, particularly if you’re looking for a new reason to hate living. Catch up on the background beforehand with the Library Reform Group blog.

So you can be pretty confident it ain’t great news:

Dear library advocates,

As we move toward a new year, PPL is moving toward a mass-layoff of all seven branch children’s specialists, which will have disastrous consequences for branch services and programs. Meanwhile, PPL administrators are projecting a nearly $1 million deficit for the next fiscal year, and they are suggesting drastic measures for balancing the budget.

For details about these developments, please visit the new Library Reform Group blog — at — which supplements our ongoing Library Reform Group website.

Please feel free to post comments and suggestions on our blog.

Hopefully, we can save the Children’s Specialist positions for the rest of this fiscal year and find a way to avoid the draconian cuts which the PPL trustees are likely to recommend for next year.

Patricia Raub
Chair, Library Reform Group