Rhode Island is very generous to libraries in affluent suburban communities and relatively stingy to the libraries in poor urban cities. In fact, the state library funding formula funnels the most state aid per resident to, in order most to least: Barrington, Jamestown, North Kingstown, East Greenwich and Cumberland. The least state aid goes to, in order least to most: Central Falls, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, West Warwick and Providence.

RI Future first reported this in March, 2014. The state funding formula for libraries is so regressive that even the Koch brother-aligned Center for Freedom and Prosperity recognized it needs to be altered in its Spotlight on Spending report last year. The attention inspired Rep. Maldonado and Sen. Crowley, both of Central Falls, to author legislation that would increase state library funding to the poorest cities in the state.

Fitzpatrick joined the chorus in his Sunday column, with an endorsement of Maldonado’s and Crowley’s bill. It is “absolutely a good idea because libraries are especially crucial sources of information and education in poorer communities, where fewer people have the money for laptops or books from Amazon,” he wrote.

It’s worth noting that Central Falls’ library was shuttered when the city went through bankruptcy and at the time the state gave more matching funds to Barrington than it would have cost to keep Central Falls’ library open.

With the hallway completely packed, Stoni Thomson—a member of the Student Labor Alliance at Brown—began, “I don’t know who is in charge here, but we have a message to deliver.”

The library administrators who were available did not respond and remained in their offices. One continued looking at his computer screen. Another sat in his chair and watched the chain of students file by his door.

Not swayed, the students in unison firmly stated, “We’re here to show our support of Brown library workers. We won’t stop until Brown agrees to a fair contract. And you haven’t seen anything yet. So now we’re going to “study-in.” We’re going to study here as a show of support to library workers.”

A solidarity clap began.

When the clapping subsided, Associate Librarian David Banush came out of his office and said, “This is not a public space for you to study in.” The students responded by sitting down and began study-ing in. Banush went back in his office and closed the door. Soon all the other library administrators’ doors closed.

A few minutes later, a Brown University public safety officer arrived and told the students they were creating a fire hazard. There was more clapping.

After the demonstration, Patrick Hutchinson, a library union worker, said, “I’ve been a union member for 40 years now…and this level of solidarity from the students is just unbelievable to me. It’s fabulous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

This demonstration was done in support of library union workers who are currently in ongoing negotiations with Brown University. The previous contract ended September 31, 2014. Library union workers have been working without a new contract since then. The main concern for the union is staffing. Many areas in the library are currently understaffed. The union is also asking to be included in new work created by the library in its effort to remain current and relevant to the academic needs of Brown students.

I should add that my perspective on all this is very biased. I am a union member in the Brown library and I have been a part of the union negotiating team. In fact, my biases are so extreme and deep that I wholeheartedly applaud and support everything the students did in their demonstration of solidarity with library workers.

Video (and above photo) by Shirin Adhami:

Step One is relatively easy: we turn the NSA’s Utah Data Center into the world’s next Great Library.

I’m not kidding.

The forces that labor for our security are not composed of evil people, but yet they can not prevent themselves from sitting far outside the functions of our democracy. They have lied to Congress, and lied repeatedly to the American people and especially the people of the world. When their efforts to maintain security are successful, their work is a victim of its own success. They lament this problem, but they do not put in any real effort to democratize their role in society. Since whatever they do is never brought to public debate except through high-profile leaks, we are forced to assume that what they are doing is evil.

And in fact, what they are doing is evil. It is evil not because of the character of its creators, but instead because these behaviors poison the well of democracy itself. It smothers a free people to be watched and listened to. Even when it is not us that is under surveillance, it destroys our credibility to have such immeasurable power over others. Much like the atom bomb before it, the imbalance of power that we Americans have in the world makes us the defacto police state. We fiddle with a sword of Damocles, dangling it over the whole world, both free and otherwise. In doing so, we are inviting our neighbors to participate in their own arms race, goading them into gobbling up our communication and dangling a sword of their own over us.

We’ve moved into very dark territory with technology, as dark as unlocking the atom ever was. So what can we do about it?

The answer is simple. We harness this immense monster we unlocked for a public good. We can set a gold standard for civilization and retool a few of these weapons and hammer them back into plowshares. We can take a $1.5 billion data center, and use it to store the best of what the world has to offer, rather than the worst. What to do with it? I don’t know. Only a public discussion of what we can do with a yottabyte of storage could yield a decent answer. Surely we could use it for advanced research, or as an auxiliary to the Library of Congress.

But what we must not do, is let that facility sit there in Utah and store the communications of our neighbors. That is a disgusting and inhuman act, regardless of its motivations. There is a point at which we have to learn to behave as decent people if we are to pretend to have any moral authority in this world.

So if anyone wants to start a campaign to make that facility the next Great Library, I’d be happy to start it with you.

The Barrington library has more than 129,000 print items on its shelves and lent out 384,257 materials last year. The Central Falls library has about 34,000 print items on the shelves and lent out 14,994 materials last year. Barrington’s library is open seven days a week, and Monday through Thursday it’s open for 12 hours a day – 9 am to 9pm. Central Falls’ library is open six days a week; five hours a day on Saturdays and seven on weekdays. Barrington’s library employs 45 people, 15 of them full time, and Central Falls employs two full time and two part time people. The Barrington library’s annual budget is just over $1.5 million and the Central Falls library’s budget is $165,000.

Another difference is the amount each will get in state aid this year. Governor Chafee’s proposed budget would give $341,488 to Barrington and $17,569 to Central Falls. That’s because state library aid is appropriated based on a library’s budget rather than its need.

Here’s the law: “For each city or town, the state’s share to support local public library services shall be equal to at least twenty-five percent (25%) of both the amount appropriated and expended in the second preceding fiscal year by the city or town from local tax revenues and funds from the public library’s private endowment that supplement the municipal appropriation.”

As such, state taxpayers generally send more dollars per resident to suburban libraries than to urban libraries.

Deborah Barchi, director of the Barrington library and a past president of the Ocean State Libraries consortium, thinks the state funding formula for local libraries is fair.

“Each town makes those decisions based on what they value,” she said. “No matter what metric you use, there would be somebody who would feel they weren’t getting enough money.”

But Steve Larrick, the president of the Central Falls Public Library Board, disagrees.

“We think the state needs to play a role in our urban libraries,” he said. Rhode Island “needs to do a better job of thinking about these social determinants.”

Larrick, who is also the town planning director in Central Falls, explained what he meant about social determinants.

“Barrington doesn’t need a library to have access to tremendous resources,” he said. “They have great access to broadband in their homes, and their schools are top notch. Their school library is probably better than our public library. A dollar spent there will not be as meaningful as a dollar spent on the Central Falls library.”

Central Falls almost lost its library when the city filed for bankruptcy two years ago. Receiver Bob Flanders closed the library and a grassroots community effort aided by New York Times coverage and a $10,000 donation from Alec Baldwin, kept the doors open. But operating expenses were decimated, and because the funding formula uses budget numbers from two years ago it is hitting them in state funding this year.

“For this year and next year, the average is really down because of the bankruptcy,” Larrick said.

I asked Governor Chafee to comment on the disparity in funding between the Barrington and Central Falls libraries. Spokeswoman Faye Zuckerman sent this:

“As Governor, a former mayor and city councilor, Governor Chafee has been an advocate for Rhode Island’s cities and towns. Throughout his years in office, he has been working to reverse the damage done by the past administration to municipalities and the Rhode Island property taxpayer.”

O’Donnell was reportedly fired for “insubordination” by Providence Community Libraries (PCL) executive director Laura Marlane. On February 25th over 40 supporters attended a PCL board meeting to ask that O’Donnell’s dismissal be reconsidered. The board took comments but would not comment on the particulars of the case.

Since his dismissal support for O’Donnell has been growing. Those who know Tom O’Donnell have a hard time imagining a scenario that rises to the level of insubordination, but so far the PCL has been mum on details, citing privacy concerns. Letters of support have been coming in from book publishers, the Rhode Island Blood Bank, the Summit Neighborhood Association and countless private individuals. The office Mayor Taveras is logging calls on this issue (401-421-2489).

There is a Facebook support page set up where the story is being tracked and a grassroots effort to get O’Donnell reinstated has begun.

Tonight at 6PM there is going to be a meeting at Rochambeau in the Community Room to organize an ongoing picketing and informational campaign. According to the Facebook page, the picket is intended to be friendliest ever and to accomplish three goals: to alert more members of the community about Tom’s firing; gather signatures on a petition and to talk with our neighbors about what Rochambeau Library means to the community and about what we the people want our Library to be.