Providence Community Library: Current Newsletter

Providence Public Library may hold legal title to the buildings housing PCL's Knight Memorial, Mount Pleasant, Olneyville, Rochambeau, Smith Hill, South Providence, and Wanskuck libraries, but a review of the history of these buildings' construction shows that they were built with a combination of public dollars (city, state and federal) and private donations from library patrons and neighborhood-library supporters. Because Providence Community Library's lease for these seven library buildings expires on June 30 our ability to continue providing essential services to these neighborhoods is currently in question.

Let's look at the facts:

Knight Memorial Library was built by the Knight family in 1924 to house the Elmwood Public Library. The PPL agreed to take over the operation of the Elmwood Public Library in the 1960s and obtained title to the building - free of charge - in 1995, for use as a library.

The Smith Hill, South Providence and Rochambeau libraries were all built in the 1930s through a "cooperative arrangement" with the city whereby Providence raised its annual library appropriations by $10,000 for each new branch built. Decades later, much of the cost of the major 2003 renovations to two of these libraries - 31 percent for South Providence Library and 40 percent for Rochambeau - was borne by the State of Rhode Island through its Public Library Construction Reimbursement Program. Providence donors also chipped in. Individual donors and the Friends of Rochambeau contributed $800,000 toward Rochambeau's renovations. In less-affluent South Providence, local residents contributed $75,000 toward renovating their library.

Mount Pleasant Library's construction in 1949 was jump-started with a donation of $25,000 from an anonymous Providence resident, and an additional $6,000 was raised by an energetic "house-to-house canvass" of Mount Pleasant residents. In 1967, an annex to the building that doubled its size was solely financed by city, state and federal grants, not by any of the PPL's own funds.
PPL used none of its own funding to pay for the current Olneyville Library building. In 1989, the city made available $100,000 in federal grants to buy an old Hospital Trust Bank building in Olneyville Square to house the library. Then PPL used part of that year's city appropriation to pay for the "start-up" of the new branch.

Wanskuck is the only one of these seven libraries that was paid for (in 1928) by PPL's own funds. Even so, it must be remembered that PPL's funds were funds donated by private citizens in support of the provision and expansion of library services to the people of Providence.

[While PPL's downtown building is not at issue here, it needs to be stated that the Empire Street addition was built in 1954 with taxpayer dollars, funds provided by a City of Providence bond.]

These seven buildings need to be transferred to the City - and soon. Last winter's snowstorms followed by the heavy spring rains demonstrated just how fragile some of these buildings have become. PPL long deferred the maintenance on most of these buildings, and some are now in urgent need of major structural repairs (which PPL refuses to perform) to remain open. PCL cannot secure grant funding to renovate these buildings until PPL turns them over to the city.

For years, PPL has had the opportunity to perform these repairs but has chosen not to. This is a situation that PCL wants to rectify. Unfortunately, PCL cannot raise the money needed to conduct these repairs until this ownership issue is settled and PCL is given long-term leases.

For example, the Champlin Foundations donates millions of dollars every year to Rhode
Island non-profits for capital purposes. Champlin is extremely generous to libraries but requires applicants either to be property owners or to have long-term leases in effect. PCL applied in both 2009 and 2010 for Champlin funding to conduct critical repairs to the Smith Hill and Wanskuck libraries, but these applications weren't considered because PCL did not satisfy the long-term lease requirement. PCL has applied to Champlin again this year, but the application will again not be considered if the lease situation is not resolved by October 1.

From the record, it is clear that the neighborhood libraries were built primarily with public and private funds for the public - the people of Providence. These library buildings rightfully belong to the public and should be transferred to the City immediately. After all, the people of Providence have already paid for them, and Providence Community Library will do the right thing and take care of them for the benefit of the people of Providence.