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ALL Access Accelerates Libraries’ Role in Adult Ed & Jobs Preparation

1/6/2016

After two years, the experimental program seeks fresh funding to continue and expand
New “Learning Lounges" help digital newcomers to meet a mouse, excel at Excel and wander the Web

EDITH LAURENT has found help with college course work at The Learning Lounge. Photo credit: Rhode Island Library Report

LARRY BRITT - ALL Access technology specialist. Credit: Library Report

   By BRIAN C. JONES
   Rhode Island Library Report

   WHEN EDITH LAURENT wanted help in an English class she was taking at the Community College of Rhode Island in Providence, she headed straight for a downtown lounge.
   It’s not the usual kind: this one has no bartender, no featured crooner, no early bird specials – just some tables and chairs and a ready supply of laptop and tablet computers in case patrons show up without their own.
   Called “The Learning Lounge,” it’s on the fifth floor of the Providence Public Library, and it is part of a two-year-old experiment in extending the role of libraries in providing adult education and job readiness services.
   Among The Learning Lounge’s offerings: help with job searches and resume writing; computer training; a typing “club;” access to the Internet; advice on how to navigate the World Wide Web; and a device that helps people with disabilities use computer keyboards and monitors.
   The Learning Lounge’s major asset, however, is its staff, experts such as Larry Britt, a technology specialist, who serve as guides for people like Edith Laurent by helping them to solve immediate problems, and, importantly, teaching them skills and techniques they can use on their own.
   In Laurent’s case, she was facing a deadline for a talk for an English class and needed some research pointers. She was soon connecting with Websites that had the information she was looking for.
   This was no surprise. Laurent, 54, a certified nursing assistant, has been to The Learning Lounge frequently and finds Britt and other staffers invariably resourceful.
   “I have to say, Larry, he’s wonderful,” Laurent says. “I’ve never asked him for something and he would say: ‘No, I can’t.’ ”

ALL ACCESS AT THE LIBRARIES
The Learning Lounge is just one of the inventions that have grown out of a program called "ALL Access in the Libraries," which is exploring new ways for libraries to strengthen their ability to provide adult education and workforce development services.

   Started as a partnership between the Providence Public Library and the Cranston Public Library, the program was launched two years ago with a half-million-dollar grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.
   Since then, the Pawtucket and East Providence public libraries have joined the program. The grant ended last October, but ALL Access is seeking new financing to continue and to add more hours and expand the concept to more libraries.
   As of mid-December, 2015, the program had drawn 393 “visitors,” about a third of them people for whom English is not their first language and 43 percent reporting that they are unemployed.
   At the same time, nearly 27 percent said they already have four-year college degrees, an indication that education is an on-going process for many Rhode Island adults contending with a rapidly changing, technology-driven economy.
   It is also an example of a trend in which libraries increasingly are offering

THE LEARNING LOUNGE at the Providence Public Library. Credit: Library Report

KARISA TASHJIAN - ALL Access director. Credit: Library Report

educational and instructional programs and services, as opposed to serving mainly as a book and research materials repository.
   In fact, as the Library Report wrote last year, programming is one of the fastest-growing areas for libraries, bringing increasing numbers of patrons, while lending of hard-copy books has been declining, as more library users borrow books through libraries’ downloading services without having to leave home.
   Libraries, of course, always have been places to which people turn when they need extra help in school and college, or when they are looking for jobs.
   But according to Karisa Tashjian, who directs ALL Access, one of the goals of the new program is to give libraries a more robust role in the field of adult education and workforce readiness, taking advantage of their high-profile status with the public and convenient locations in their communities.
   Further, she says, there is an enormous need for adult education services in Rhode Island, where current programs have room for 6,000 students, but the need may be as high as 100,000 slots.
   Tashjian, who is executive director of the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative, an education program for which the Providence Public Library is its fiscal agent, says she and colleagues at the Cranston Public Library wanted ALL Access to develop fresh approaches, working bottom-up to meet the needs of adult learners and job seekers.
   Thus, the concept of a “Learning Lounge” wasn’t envisioned when the Providence and Cranston libraries sought the half-million-dollar National Leadership Grant for Libraries.
   Instead, the lounge was an outgrowth of continuing discussions among a core group of 10 librarians and representatives of partner organizations.
   Realizing that many adults were both busy with work and families, as well as uncertain of where to find help, the planners wanted to provide a gateway with as few barriers as possible.
   So, one feature of The Learning Lounges - now in Providence, Cranston, East Providence and Pawtucket – is that people can show up, usually without appointments, and another is that the services are open-ended, responding to whatever needs the patrons say they have, whether it’s help in a particular subject like math; guidance on an overall education strategy; or instruction about a computer program, such as Excel, Microsoft’s calculating and spreadsheet software.
   The goal is for the ALL Access staff to act as guides and facilitators, directing patrons to existing programs, some of them at other agencies and locations, or to introduce them to computer-based learning programs, serving as facilitators as the students do much of the work themselves.
   The approach is suggested by the axiom that successful educational programs teach students not just a particular subject or curriculum, but how to “learn to learn,” launching them on a continuing process of self-directed education.
   “We are trying to build lifelong learning,” says Tashjian.

                                                  ONE STUDENT'S LONG JOURNEY
   ALL Access is perfectly aligned for someone like Edith Laurent. Born in Haiti, Laurent has been crafting and executing an education and career plan ever since she arrived in Rhode Island in 1990; it’s been a strenuous process in which she has learned English, become a U.S. citizen, obtained a high school diploma, earned certifications in two healthcare specialties and now is pursuing a two-year degree from CCRI.
   Which hints at a daily schedule in which time is always in short supply.
For example, the mid-December day on which she was interviewed for this story literally began with a conference call to God: she and two other members of her Elmwood Avenue Church of God in Providence prayed together by phone.
   Church activities, such as helping with a soup kitchen, occupy a significant portion of her time, as do other roles: seeing her husband off to work, getting their daughter ready for school and helping her 81-year-old mother begin her day.
   As for her own work schedule, she puts in 40 hours a week (and sometimes more) as a certified nursing assistant in the labor and delivery room at Women & Infants Hospital; and she does another eight hours a week as a medication technician assistant at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
   That’s in addition to a three-hour weekly class at CCRI, where she’s taking one class at a time towards her ultimate goal: to become an x-ray technician. Her first course was in English, and when she needed help, The Learning Lounge was only about a block away from CCRI.
   “I have to say, they have helped me a lot,” Laurent says of the library program. “You know, it’s so hard when you are looking for research, and you don’t know where to go. The place was here; it was available.”

KATHERINE BODEN - Cranston emerging-technology librarian. Photo courtesy of Katherine Boden

                               FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT
   Karisa Tashjian says that The Learning Lounges have served as meeting places for college students like Edith Laurent. Some teachers suggest students go to the ALL Access libraries to do their homework, knowing they can get extra help, as well as having a place to work.
   The ALL Access initiatives are deliberately works-in-progress, changing and evolving as experience dictates. Further, programs developed first by one library have spread to others.
   Two examples are the Learning Lounge concept, and a one-on-one tutoring approach to instruction in computer and technology lore.
   The Providence library developed the Learning Lounge idea – a space to which students and other patrons could come to get help with a variety of problems.
   When ALL Access began, however, the Cranston library didn’t have space dedicated to technology learning. But when its new “C-Lab” was constructed with a grant from the Rhode Island-based Champlin Foundations, Cranston was able to schedule Learning Lounge activities there.
Meanwhile, as the C-Lab was being readied, Cranston developed one-on-one computer instruction, in which patrons make appointments with technology-savvy librarians, who provide individualized tutoring in sessions lasting from a half-hour to two hours, covering areas such as basic operation of computers or learning software programs, such as Microsoft’s Word processing.
   “One-on-one technology appointments have been extremely positive and satisfactory to our patrons,” says Katherine Boden, Cranston’s emerging-technologies librarian, who was an ALL Access team leader when the program began.
   Boden says tutoring works for some students, such as those who are uncomfortable in group settings, and alternatively, for those who want more advanced instruction than they find in more structured classes.
   Thus, when Cranston opened its Providence-style Learning Lounge in the new C-Lab, the library continued the one-on-one tutoring there. Similarly, the Providence library made one-on-one tutoring one of the services at its Learning Lounge.
   This kind of cross-fertilization is seen as one of ALL Access’ accomplishments.

EDWARD GARCIA - Cranston Public Library director. Credit: Library Report

Edward Garcia, director of the Cranston Public Library, says his library welcomed the chance to work closely with another library.
“It’s really been great to have a partner in a forward-thinking director like Jack Martin,” the Providence library director, says Garcia, explaining that both he and Martin support expanding roles of libraries and experimenting with new programs.
“Let’s give our staffs the freedom to try new programs,” Garcia says. “If they are successful, great; if they don’t succeed, we’ll pull it out and try something new.”

PROFICIENCY TESTS; "EXPLORATION STATIONS"
Among the ALL Access successes has been its promotion of a national certification system that demonstrates that participants have mastered skills such as elementary computer operations, knowledge of software programs such as Microsoft’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint and ability to use social media.

NORTHSTAR computer users' proficiency certificates displayed at the Providence Public Llibrary. Credit: Library Report

   The tests, administered by proctors, are provided through the Northstar Digital Literacy Project, an outgrowth of a digital literacy program begun by the St. Paul Public Library in Minnesota, and which is now used in more than half the nation’s states, including Rhode Island.
   Northstar offers practice tests online, with the official certification exams monitored at participating sites, including ALL Access libraries.
“Our Northstar computer certification has been very popular,” says the Cranston library’s Boden. “We have people attend our computer classes and then take these assessments to be certified in computer basics and Microsoft Office products and then put that on their resumes.”
   A major advantage of the Northstar program is that it’s free, whereas similar services charge a fee, she says. This can be important, especially for unemployed workers for whom money is tight.

EXPLORATION STATION at Providence library. Credit: Library Report

   Tashjian says ALL Access has been urging expansion of the Northstar system to more libraries throughout the state. The Northstar Website lists 13 participating Rhode Island libraries, along with education and literacy programs such as the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island and Genesis Center.
   Similarly, the ALL Access program at the Providence Public Library offers a “Typing Club,” which involves an online typing program that prepares students to earn a proficiency certificate through the state’s One Stop employment centers.
   The ALL Access program also developed “Exploration Stations,” devices at the Providence and Cranston libraries that have features that help people with disabilities use computers, through large screens, various kinds of keyboards and computer “mouse” mechanisms and other features.
   They were created in partnership with TechACCESS of Rhode Island, which provides technology services for people with disabilities. So far, Boden says, the stations mainly have attracted teachers and librarians who work with persons with disabilities, rather than patrons, and that the program is working on ways to expand their use by individuals.

                              ‘COMMITTED TO CONTINUING’
   Since the federal grant ended last Oct. 31, Tashjian says the program is operating with existing staff as it looks for new financing to help it expand to other libraries and increase the days and hours during which it operates.
   Boden says the program also is looking for additional partners, which can use Library Lounge and other facilities for their related programs. For example, the Cranston library has worked with House of Hope Community Development Corporation in providing computer learning for homeless individuals to increase their job-hunting skills.
   Garcia, the Cranston library director, says that he wants to keep the program going.
   “I think it has been a really successful project, and we, I know, are committed to continuing it with our current staff in our library,” he said.

     ALL Access also has had indirect benefits for a number of libraries, Garcia said.
   For example, the program allowed him to hire Boden as an ALL Access team leader. When he was able to hire her fulltime onto the library’s regular payroll, that opened a slot to hire another ALL Access worker.
   In turn, the replacement worker found a job at Virginia Tech university; another was hired as a librarian by the West Warwick school system;

THE C-LAB at the Cranston library. Photo courtesy Cranston Public Library

and another went to a Connecticut library.
   “It was kind of a cool thing seeing people we hired as interns go onto fulltime jobs immediately,” Garcia says, although he acknowledges he would have liked to have had the funds to hire them himself.
   Tashjian says ALL Access has been compiling data to show how the effort has worked, an important step she says in being able to prove to future funders that libraries can be a key player in adult education and employment training. Some of the statistics are available on the program’s Website's "dashboard."
   She is pleased about the program’s versatility, in that patrons have come in for help in one area, then return for guidance in another.
   “We don’t want learning to be a one-time thing,” she says.
   Boden says the Cranston library has had positive feedback from some patrons.
“New people come into the library and say: ‘Oh, I didn’t know the library offered this, but my mother told me about it,’ and they are very shocked that we offer these services,” she says.
   Some patrons have told Boden and others at the library that the help they received at the library had direct effects on their job searches.
“Sometimes it’s just working, maybe, on their LinkedIn profiles or showing them how to apply on certain sites, and then we hear back, and they got a job or they got the interview,” she says.
   Karen Mellor, state chief of library services and head of the Office of Library and Information Services, served on the program’s advisory steering committee and gives the effort by the Providence Public Library and the Cranston Public Library high marks.
   “The two libraries have done great work,” Mellor told the Library Report in an e-mail.
   “Through the program, the ties between adult education and libraries have been substantially strengthened to assist those Rhode Islanders who need help with digital literacy and online learning,” Mellor says.
   “Karisa (Tashjian) has done, and continues to do, fantastic work to promote adult learning in libraries,” Mellor adds.

"The two libraries have done great work. Through the program, the ties between adult education and libraries have been substantially strengthened to assist those Rhode Islanders who need help with digital literacy and online learning."
- Karen Mellor, state chief of library services

                         A DILIGENT STUDENT’S PROMISING RESULTS
   Edith Laurent has combined continuing education with job training since she and her family arrived in Rhode Island 25 years ago.
   Through the International Institute, she began learning English, then became a certified nursing assistant, working at Steere House. Later she earned a certificate that allows her to dispense medications, which is her job now at Steere House, in addition to her primary nursing assistant’s work at Women & Infants.
   Her new goal is to earn a degree at the Community College of Rhode Island that will qualify her for work as an x-ray technician. In the process, she needed a high school diploma, which she sought through the Dorcas International Institute and later Genesis Center.

As she worked towards her high school diploma, she found that she lacked computer skills, which is when she met Larry Britt, the technology specialist for the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative and ALL Access. Britt teaches 12-week computer courses at various libraries and happened to be running one at the Pawtucket Public Library when Laurent signed up. "I have to say, when I started with Larry, maybe I know the 'mouse,' by name,” and that was about all, Laurent says. By the end of the class, she says, “I don’t want to say I’m an expert – but I can do a lot of things by myself.”

   Last June, she finished the high school program and was chosen as the graduation speaker, thanking her teachers, classmates, God and people at the libraries. In September, she began the English class at CCRI.
   She said patients and others sometimes urge her to seek a nursing degree, and indeed, her girlhood dream was to become a nurse. But she says she’s made a hard-headed decision to focus on becoming an x-ray technician, saying she still faces some language barriers, and that her two jobs, her family and church responsibilities take much of the time she would need to pursue a nursing degree.
“So, in life, you have to see what you can do,” she said.
   Still, when she was interviewed in December, she acknowledged that the work in her CCRI English class was going well.
   Shortly before New Year’s Day, Larry Britt sent a celebratory e-mail to Karisa Tashjian and others at ALL Access:

Some good news from Learning Lounge client, Edith Laurent, to end the year …. She texted me last night to thank us for our guidance and to say she received her grade for her first course at CCRI - an A !!!

TIVERTON OPENS 'CROWN JEWEL' OF RHODE ISLAND LIBRARIES, ENDING LONG CAMPAIGN

6/14/2015

Library Report photos by Brian C. Jones

THEN ... Groundbreaking for a new library, at the cleared building site, Oct. 26, 2013.

AND NOW ... The completed Tiverton Public Library at the dedication, June 13, 2015. A crowd of about 200 gathered for the ceremony, after which the public got its first look inside.

By Brian C. Jones
Library Report staff
    TIVERTON – June 13, 2015 - Celebrating the end of a long and sometimes perilous crusade to build a new Tiverton Public Library, local, state and federal officials today opened a $10.6 million building that some speakers described as the “crown jewel” of Rhode Island public libraries.
   Set in a grove of trees across from town recreation fields and the Sandywoods artists’ village, the new building has both modern and traditional design elements, the most striking of which is a four-sided clock tower rising above the front entrance.
      Inside, there is more than eight times the space than at the now-closed Essex Library it replaces – 23,792 square feet in the new library, compared to 2,850 square feet in a 76-year-old building that did not comply with fire codes or disability access rules.
      Depending on how you measure it, the campaign for the new library stretches as far back as 1977 – when the current trustees’ chairperson, Barbara R. Donnelly, joined the board; or to 1987 – when a consultant declared that the Essex could not be enlarged; or to 2001, the day following the 9/11 terror attacks, when state officials warned that the town could lose both state funding and networking services, linking it with other libraries, if its library couldn’t meet state standards.
      During today’s late morning ceremonies, held at the front steps of the new building, speakers often referred to the extended campaign.

Karen Mellor, director of the state Office of Library and Information Services, noted that during the 14-year period that resulted in the construction, a generation of Tiverton children has gone through the school system, from kindergarten

BARBRA R. DONNELLY, chairperson of the library trustees

through high school.
      But Mellor told an enthusiastic crowd of 200, some of whom sat in rows of folding chairs set up on the unblemished asphalt of the parking lot while others stood, that the successful effort proves the adage that “good things come to those who wait.”
      “Tiverton: you have waited a really, really long time,” Mellor declared, “and I think you will all agree with me that this is really a very, very good thing that you have here.”
      The state’s newest library, she continued, “will now be the crown jewel in the network of libraries across the state of Rhode Island.”
      U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline, D-RI, recalled attending the groundbreaking on Oct. 26, 2013, held at a crude clearing, from which some trees had been removed, along with a few of the many boulders deposited long ago by glaciers. The congressman noted that the crowds today and in 2013 were the about same size, proof of how much Tiverton residents care about their library.
      The town’s commitment, Cicilline said, will inspire the state’s congressional delegation to continue to push for federal funds and other help for the nation's libraries.
      “This is not only the crown jewel of the public libraries in our state,” said the former Providence mayor, “but the design of this really will ensure that young people really see this as a place to come to learn and to explore and to understand the world around them.”
      The new building has areas for all patrons: separate children’s and teen sections, along with areas attractive to adults, like a reading and sitting room outfitted with a big fireplace, reported Cicilline, who had taken a tour prior to the ceremony.

                                        THE PUBLIC GETS A LOOK

       After the dedication, the library opened for business – the first time that the public has been allowed into the new building, despite initial hopes by library officials for a “soft opening” in May, well in advance of today’s ceremonial opening.
    Donnelly, the trustees’ chairwoman, said in an interview that a last-minute glitch developed because the building’s fire sprinkler system was designed for water delivered at a higher pressure than is normally provided by the town’s water system, thus preventing public use.
But now, while awaiting installation of a remedial pumping system that is expected within a week or so, the library will continue to operate on the condition that a fire department official be present, she said.
      That the public could now visit the library was good news for Michael Napolitano and his 2-year-old daughter, Morgan.

    Napolitano, who lives near the library, was walking with Morgan around the recreational fields when he spotted the ceremonies underway across the street. So they walked over and watched the proceedings, sitting on a curb while munching on snacks.
       “Are they going to open it up afterwards?” Napolitano asked, saying he wanted to bring Morgan inside the library and that he and his daughter would make many visits after that.
      Also waiting patiently during the opening program were members of

MORGAN NAPOLITANO and her dad, Michael

another Tiverton family, the Lacroix family – Connor, 8; Mya, 6; and Parker, 4; who sat on the sidewalk, while adults Donna and Amanda, who held 3-month-old Ella, stood throughout the proceedings.
    Amanda said she brought the children regularly to the Essex Library and that they had been watching the construction progress eagerly, frequently driving by the building.              Once inside the new library, the Lacroixs headed for refreshments, including big plates of cookies, which the Friends of Tiverton Libraries had provided in an airy common room just off the lobby, with big windows overlooking the area in front of the building.
    The snacks were a reward for the children for waiting through the dedication, Amanda said. But as soon as they were finished, they planned to tour the rest of the facility, especially the children’s area.

THE LACROIX FAMILY - Parker, at left, Connor, Mya, and Amanda and Ella

    Other spectators filled the new building, some walking in groups of three and five people, inspecting the main reception area, which has an airy, vaulted ceiling, lined with skylights that flood the spaces below with natural light, including banks of computer terminals, the circulation desk and racks neatly stocked with newspapers and magazines. Individuals wandered through the library stacks, browsing through books.
    The children’s section was a popular destination, as children and their mothers sat together in a central corral-like area equipped with kid-sized computer desks. One woman walked out with her arms full of books.

                  REMEMBERING A LONG CAMPAIGN

    Among those circulating through the library was Sally Black, the chairperson of the town’s school committee, who chatted with Kathryn E. Ryan, who is the immediate past president of the Friends’ group and who played a long and major role in making the library project a success.
    Black carried a large stuffed bear and a “vote yes” sign from the campaign in the fall of 2011, during which she, Ryan and others went door-to-door to convince voters to approve a $7 million bond issue that was a keystone in financing the construction.     .

    Advocates needed to make the library’s case personally, Ryan said, to ensure that the referendum did not get entangled with other town election issues.
    In their face-to-face discussions with residents, the supporters had stressed the many benefits of a library to the town, along with the fact that the state would reimburse the town for $4 million of the bond, with the town picking up the other $3 million. It was a major victory for the proponents, with the referendum capturing 56 percent of the vote.
      Savoring that, and other landmark successes, Black noted that the Rhode

ADVOCATES: Kathryn E. Ryan, past president of the Friends of Tiverton Libraries,left; and Sally Black, chair of the school committee

Island Constitution makes the state responsible for public libraries in the same way that it is for public schools. As a result, the state provides grants-in-aid to local libraries, linked to how much local communities provide in operating funds, plus 50 percent of eligible new construction costs.
    Ryan noted that the tense election campaign was only one of many cliff-hanger points, which, if events hadn’t turned out the right way, might have scuttled the project.
    For example, if Ryan hadn’t picked up word one morning at the Post Office that a nearly 6-acre plot at Bliss Four Corners was for sale, supporters might not have found a suitable site.
    Or if U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, hadn’t wrangled a $475,000 grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, they might not have been able to pay for the land.
    Or, if town state legislators Rep. John G. Edwards and Sen. Walter S. Felag, Jr., hadn’t been able to get the town included in the state construction aid program before a moratorium was enacted, they might have lost state aid.

Or if Dr. Leon W. Hoyer, a retired physician and medical school professor, had not come along just in time, they wouldn’t have had a seasoned chairman to head the building committee. Or if Eileen M. Browning’s Tiverton Library Foundation hadn’t been able to raise more than $3 million worth of donations, including $1 million from anonymous donors…. so many ifs.

DR. LEON W. HOYER, building committee chair

KEYNOTE speaker, author Michael J. Tougias, signs books after the dedication

               A TIME TO CELEBRATE

     But this day, the project was fresh out of ifs. The mood was upbeat and celebratory, both during the speaking program and after.
     Keynote speaker Michael J. Tougias, of Plymouth, Mass., who has published 23 books and is working on another, said that he has visited some 1,000 libraries to talk about his books, and that the Tiverton building “is the most beautiful, functional library I’ve seen,” a line that drew applause.
      Emphasizing the importance of libraries in shaping individual lives, Tougias recalled his own boyhood in Longmeadow, Mass., a suburb of Springfield, during which he struggled in school and became a disciplinary headache.
   But one day he visited the town’s library, where a librarian asked him what kind of books interested him. He told her that he hoped when he was older to travel to Alaska and live off the land. “You want adventure books,” the librarian told him, and he left with three, including one entitled “Dogsled Danger.”
      Tougias went on to find many more books to his liking, and later as a writer, one of his specialties became books about survival at sea, including one he coauthored in 2010, “The Finest Hours: The true story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s most daring sea rescue.” It’s now being made into a movie.
      Other speakers included Town Councilman Brett N. Pelletier, who was the council’s liaison to the library project. Donnelly, the trustees’ chairperson, who acted as master of ceremonies, thanked many who had contributed to the project, including architects at Union Studio of Providence, and Behan Brothers, Inc., of Middletown, the project’s construction manager.
      Troop 4218 of the Tiverton Boy Scouts provided a color guard and led the Pledge of Allegiance.
      The Greater Tiverton Community Chorus performed two numbers, the first of which was From Sea to Shining Sea.

RIBBON CUTTING - Kathryn E. Ryan, left, past president of Friends of Tiverton Libraries; Eileen M. Browning, chair, Tiverton Library Foundation; Dr. Leon W. Hoyer, building committee chair; Barbara R. Donnelly, trustees chair; Ann Grealish Rust, library director; and Town Council President Denise M. deMedeiros

    A ceremonial ribbon cutting ended the program, with six individuals gathered along a red ribbon: Denise M. deMedeiros, town council president; Ann M. Grealish Rust, library director; Donnelly; Browning, Hoyer and Ryan.
      The community chorus’ final number was Take Care of This House, an enduring song from a failed 1976 Broadway musical by composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, entitled “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
      The piece ends with these lines:
        Take care of this house
        Be always on call
        For this house
      Is the home of us all.

RHODE ISLAND LIBRARY TRENDS: Meeting Digital Age demands; but warning signs abound

4/9/2015

By Brian C. Jones
Rhode Island Library Report
   How are Rhode Island’s public libraries doing?
      In some ways, pretty well.
      Especially if libraries are viewed from a glass-half-full perspective in responding to the challenges presented by the digital technology revolution, which has changed many people’s relationship to books and information.
      Two important measures help tell the story:

The latest annual data report compiled by the state Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) shows that libraries are building attendance for classes and other in-library programs, while continuing to offer free access to powerful computers and the Internet.
The budget proposed by newly elected Governor Gina Raimondo continues the state's strong tradition of support to town and city

POSITIVE TREND: Participation in library programs has increased in the last five years, as libraries provide more learning and skills training. It's an increase of more than 16 percent in five years. SOURCE: R.I. Office of Library and Information Services annual library surveys

NOT-SO-POSITIVE: Brorrowing of books, videos and other materials, while still high, has been dropping during the last five years, one of several indicators of library activity. It's a nearly 19 percent drop since 2010. SOURCE: OLIS surveys

COMPUTER WORK STATIONS in the children's section at the Knight Memorial Library in Providence. CREDIT: Brian C. Jones, Rhode Island Library Report

libraries, as well as OLIS. The governor's proposed budget envisions total spending of more than $13 million: $11.4 million for local library operations and construction aid, and $2.1 for OLIS.
      The bulk of library funding comes from their home governments, about $32 million.
     Collectively, the state’s 48 public library systems constitute a respectable industry, employing 1,007 workers – many of them savvy specialists, who are both neutral arbiters of information and passionate defenders of unfettered access to information. The library systems bring in revenues of nearly $51 million a year in local, state, federal and charitable funds.
      In the period covered by the state data roundup – the last half of 2013 and first half of 2014 – libraries counted more than 6 million visitors. That’s equivalent to every Rhode Islander walking into a public library six times a year.
     And at a time when the digital revolution has children and elders alike mesmerized as they stare into large and small video screens, libraries serve as a bricks-and-mortar common gathering place for actual, non-virtual people to attend community meetings and one-on-one and group tutorials.
      The number of programs libraries offer – ranging from English-as-a-second-language to gardening to computer training sessions – have increased 25 percent during the past five years, with a total of 25,792 such programs in 2014, drawing 407,511 participants; it's a 16 percent increase in five years.
      Moreover, libraries are doing things in new ways that statistics only hint at, by providing their patrons with access to computer resources, an evolution in their role as free information portals during the paper-and-ink days.
      This is especially important as Rhode Island, which pioneered the Industrial Revolution in the United States, now finds itself one of the nation’s economic laggards, with persistent high unemployment and underemployment.
      “We see a really big role for libraries in continuing to help Rhode Islanders get back to work,” says Karen Mellor, who was appointed state chief of library services last December.
      For example, libraries are serving as way-stations for jobless workers seeking unemployment benefits, one requirement of which is a resume to help them find new work.
      For some workers, who cannot afford high-speed Internet access, or computers, or both, the 1,397 computer terminals available without charge at libraries are a lifeline in seeking benefits and jobs. Libraries counted 1.4 million users of the terminals last year.
      Many librarians are now well-versed in helping patrons learn how to use computers and to comply with elementary requirements of the state Department of Labor and Training.
      Similarly, when the nation’s new health care program, the Affordable Care Act, was rolled out, libraries served as places where “navigators” from HealthSource RI could meet with potential customers of Rhode Island’s homegrown insurance exchange.

The nine-branch Providence Community Library had seven employees trained as official navigators, and they helped 261 people sort through and sign up for health insurance plans.
Also, AskRI.org, the Statewide Reference Resource Center, continues to expand its scope beyond that of an "ask-the-librarian" service, becoming a hub on library Websites that provides a wide range of online services, from auto repair advice to language-learning programs.

“We see a really big role for libraries in continuing to help Rhode Islanders get back to work."
-- Karen Mellor, state chief of library services

Along the same lines, libraries are increasing efforts to provide free electronic books, which patrons can download from home and read on their tablets, smartphones and other computers.
The number of e-books is still limited as libraries thrash out arrangements with book publishers, who would rather sell books to individual customers than sell licenses to libraries. Still, e-material loans – mostly books – last year totaled nearly 460,000, which is about 10 percent of the circulation of traditional print materials.

The glass half-empty

But, while acknowledging the resilience of libraries, many of these same figures can be viewed through a glass-half-empty perspective, raising red flags about the future of libraries.
Comparing the 2014 period covered by the latest OLIS data roundup to similar data collected during the previous four years, the libraries showed slippage in circulation, the number of patrons with library cards and people visiting.

The number of registered borrowers, or cardholders, slipped by 108,158 between 2010 and 2014. The current total of 466,618 cardholders represents a loss of nearly 19 percent.
Similarly, circulation dropped 8.5 percent, down from more than 7.8 million in 2010 to less than 7.2 million last year.
And visitors numbered nearly 6.3 million five years ago, compared to 6 million last year, about a 4 percent drop.
Public computer users even dropped, although only about 1 percent.

      Then there’s Governor Raimondo’s proposed budget, which contains about the same level of state support for libraries as in the current budget.
      In fact, one of the most important areas of state aid – the grants that go to local libraries for their operating budgets – remain at the same dollar amount under Raimondo’s proposed budget as in 2007.
      While generous compared to no-aid in many other states, Rhode Island’s grant-in-aid program would stay at $7,698,411, which means a loss of about $1 million in spending power when inflation is taken into account, according to federal Consumer Price Index calculators.

The future

What remains unclear are the long-term trends that will emerge as the Digital Revolution continues.
Will libraries be able to retain a large consumer base, which, in turn, will prompt local and state governments, along with foundations and private donors, to continue to fund libraries?

KAREN MELLOR

     Or will changed reading habits, new ways of communicating and a changed media culture prompted by computer technology undermine libraries’ traditional role as centers of no-fee learning and information?
      Karen Mellor, the new state library chief, is upbeat.
      “I think libraries are being really tremendously proactive,” says Mellor.
“Whereas we had that 19th Century model of a book repository – people who go and get their books there; now the library is a dynamic, living, breathing organism that looks at what the community needs and responds to that.”

H. JACK MARTIN

     H. Jack Martin, now in his second year as director of the Providence Public Library, noted that the downtown library is changing from the “grocery store model” of service, where people come to take out books and other resources, to a “kitchen model,” where active, hands-on creative learning takes place.
      He gave the example of a “Teen Tech Squad” program, in which nine young persons compiled profiles of Providence neighborhoods, using computer tablets to conduct interviews, then researching the library’s historical collections and, finally, creating Websites to display what they’d found.
      In just 10 weeks, the team had acquired “a portfolio of skills,” acting as reporters, researchers, Website designers and storytellers, Martin said.
      “I think libraries have an opportunity to help people make this shift from being sheer consumers to actually creators and writers,” Martin said. “It’s a whole new Wild West.”
      Laura Marlane, director of the city’s other library system, the Providence Community Library, notes that the network of neighborhood branches is playing a traditional role of providing children with information they might not get elsewhere.
    But, now, she says, the Digital Revolution has increased, rather than diminished, the importance of this kind of work.

LAURA MARLANE

“Libraries are even more essential with the Internet, because it’s so easy to get misinformation if you don’t know how to look for things properly,” says Marlane, explaining that when children come to the library after school, staffers can help them navigate the Internet.
“They come here, and they do their homework here, and we point them towards legitimate resources,” Marlane says. “We teach them how to know what’s a good resource, and what’s not and how to be more aware.”

     It could be that changes that are being driven by cultural and technological forces mean that the very way library services are measured – counts of cardholders, visitors and circulation – are outdated.
      Still, the year-to-year figures that OLIS collects so carefully may signal new trends, both positive and negative, and therefore are valid indicators that should not be ignored by those who regard libraries as an essential underpinning of American democracy.

(Photo Credits: Mellor, OLIS; Martin and Marlane, Library Report)

Library Trends

This chart shows a five-year comparison of some indicators of library activity, using figures from the state Office of Library and Information Services, which annually collects data from the state's 48 library systems. The calculations are those of the Library Report.

Warwick Public Library is First Library In Rhode Island to Create a "Makerspace"

8/25/2014

“Idea Studio’ provides Warwick library-goers with high-tech gadgets for do-it-yourself projects, as well as space for community learning projects

MAKERSPACE CONNECTION - Eric Wineman explains household electronics to Audrey and Stephen Snow during a "Community Workshop" at the Warwick Public Library's "Idea Studio," the state's first library "makerspace." Listening in at far left is Librarian Evan Barta, coordinator of technology. All photos by Gina Macris, Library Report unless noted

By GINA MACRIS
Rhode Island Library Report

      WARWICK -- One evening in July, a trickle of patrons walked into the Warwick Public Library off Sandy Lane to learn something new, carrying not books, but broken electrical fixtures.
     Warwick resident Eric Wineman, a licensed journeyman electrician, volunteered his time as the guest teacher. He says it was his way of giving back to the library for helping him through a long period of unemployment.
     The previous month’s instructor had been Evan Barta, the library’s coordinator of technology, who showed patrons how to speed up their personal computers.
     The monthly fix-it event goes by the name “Community Workbench,” one of many offerings of the library’s Idea Studio, where the public may sign up for a variety of computer-related classes and use a 3D printer and other high-tech devices they might not be able to afford to have at home.

Cranston Library Plans Similar Space in Fall

        Warwick’s Idea Studio opened in October, 2013, as the first such dedicated public library space in Rhode Island. Cranston’s public library is not far behind, anticipating the start of renovations soon to create a similar “makerspace” that is expected to open in the fall.
     As part of a growing trend around the country, these spaces signal a shift in the way libraries view their roles in serving their communities.
     Barta said, “We want people to think of the library as the place where community meets to learn things, not just a place to get things to go home.”
     “The main thing is that we want this to be a community hub,” he said. “There are a lot of places you can go to get information. It’s not the same as people coming together and learning,” he said.

"Community Workbench:" Light Bulbs and More

ERIC WINEMAN wires a lamp.

      At July’s Community Workbench, library patrons learned how to replace broken electrical plugs, wire a lamp, install a lighting fixture and make other simple fixes.
      Resist the urge to keep tightening electric bulbs in sockets, Wineman instructed. After the bulb lights, make one more quarter turn and leave it alone.
      This method ensures that a drop of solder at the base of the bulb and a raised tab at the bottom of the socket make a connection, sending electricity through the bulb.
     When the bulb repeatedly is screwed in too tightly, the drop of solder on its bottom erodes and the raised tab gets flattened, breaking the connection between the socket and the bulb.
   Wineman also doled out repeated safety precautions, explaining that what the amateur doesn’t know about electricity could kill him or burn down his house. As the questions became more complicated, Wineman’s refrain became, “Call a licensed electrician.”
    Audrey and Stephen Snow learned that for safety’s sake, they had to replace, rather than repair, a frayed power cord on a space heater.
    With Wineman's help, Pat O'Connor got a chandelier working again, although she said she would probably use it on a table rather than trying to reconnect it herself to an electrical box in the ceiling.

For Librarians, an Added Role as High-tech Explainer

     O’Connor and the Snows were not newcomers to the Idea Studio. O’Connor and Audrey Snow both said they had signed up for computer classes taught by Barta, although Snow indicated the classes are so popular that she finds it tough to get into one.
More than 1,700 people have attended Idea Studio programs, including about 1,000 people who have taken computer classes, during the first year the Idea Studio has been open, Barta said.
A woman who gave her name only as Doreen said she comes to the Idea Studio to use the equipment that transfers video recordings from tape to DVDs.
      James Thomas, who had gone to the library to return some books, noticed the Community Workbench underway and stopped in just to listen.
      Thomas, who recently moved to Warwick from Johnston, said, “It seems like they have a lot of cool programs here.”
      One patron came to the Community Workbench to ask librarian Barta if he could revive a laptop computer that had been overheating.
“It’s the new librarian,” quipped Barta, who received a master’s degree in library science from the University of Rhode Island in 2009 and has developed his technical expertise independently, building on a childhood curiosity about computers.

For Kids, "Maker Camp" Provides Science + Fun

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH - Marialis Guzman, left, Megan Sarza and Kylee Howard make a water fountain from water bottles and plastic tubing during a "Maker Camp" session at Warwick Public Library

    Two days after the Community Workbench event, Barta stood on the patio just outside the Idea Studio and distributed plastic bottles of water and plastic tubing to about a dozen elementary and middle school children. With his help, they got to work applying the principles of water pressure and gravity to power home-made water fountains.
    The experiment was part of Maker Camp, sponsored by Google, the internet giant, and Make Magazine.
    With about $500 in supplies and a curriculum from the sponsors, Barta has led his charges in a series of one-hour projects over several weeks that introduced them to do-it-yourself fun, using everything from PVC pipe and rubber bands to electronic components.

        Warwick’s library is among several hundred Maker Camp affiliates in the United States and other countries..
     The water fountain experiment counted on the pressure of water falling through a tube to force up a spray in the “fountain,” cut from the bottom of a plastic bottle. Initially, less-than-perfect seals at critical connections in the apparatus stymied the children, dissipating the water pressure and the force necessary for a spray.
Barta was ready to "get out the play-doh" to reinforce the seals, when a  group of girls finally succeeded – and couldn’t resist a little gloating in front of the boys.
     Jacqueline Gardner, the mother of one of the participants, noted that “science is about trial and error.”
     She said she relies on the library system for summer activities for her son, as the family can’t afford a day camp or child care. Gardner said Timothy had participated in a different activity earlier in the day at the library’s Apponaug branch.
     Michelle Peterson, the mother of Matthew, 13, and Alex, 10, said she homeschools her children and takes advantage of various enrichment classes the library offers for them.

MAKER CAMPERS Timothy Gardner, left, and Matthew Peterson work on fountain project with Librarian Evan Barta

"Maker" Movement Has Historic Roots

     The connection between making things and libraries dates from 1873, when the Gowanda Ladies Social Society formed in Gowanda, NY to quilt, knit, sew, socialize and talk about books, according to the American Library Association.
    Just four years later, the group had evolved into the Ladies Library Association. And in 1900 it received a state charter as the Gowanda Free Library.
    Today, knitting is perhaps the most popular activity that makes its home in the library’s Idea Studio, said Barta, although the once monthly “Good Knitting” group long pre-dates the opening of that space last year.
      Knitting and some other groups, like scrapbooking, are not run by librarians; instead, the library welcomes anyone who wants to start a group around a particular interest, as long as it is open to anyone, said Barta.
     “We’ve been doing a lot of programing and events for a long time, but now we’re doing it in a different way,” he said.
The Idea Studio was carved out of a former café space just off the library’s main entrance with a $48,000 grant from the Champlin Foundations that paid for remodeling and equipment costs.
       The Idea Studio combines libraries’ traditional emphasis on public education with new high tech tools that help make learning fun and fill the technological gaps in people’s lives.
       As Barta was finishing up with the young fountain makers, a woman walked into the Idea Studio and asked for help in using Skype, the video conferencing service, because she had a job interview coming up.

3D Printer - A New Tool With Many Uses

      Eric Wineman, the electrician, found out about the job he ultimately landed during the many hours he spent at the Idea Studio while he was unemployed for 18 months.
     He also became a fan of the 3D printer, which can be programed to make many objects from plastic.
     Instead printing ink on a flat piece of paper, the 3D printer runs both horizontally and vertically, laying down layers of tiny melted plastic dots through a robotic arm.
    Cranston was Rhode Island’s first public library to acquire a 3D printer, nearly a year ago.
    Cranston's machine arrived just in

JEWELRY PACKAGING components created with the Cranston Public Library's 3D printer used by John Deignan, a graphic arts student at Rhode Island College. Photo courtesy of John Deignan

time for John Deignan, a 24 year-old graphic design student at Rhode Island College.
     Deignan used the printer to create prototype packaging for jewelry of his own design. The original packaging fulfilled a graphic design requirement for graduation, he said.
     As an aspiring graphic designer, Deignan said, “Artists have to know everything.”
“I didn’t want to limit myself to web design or print media,” he said. “I was researching how 3D printers work,” he said. “It was a pretty good learning curve.”
     Until the Cranston library completes renovations on its new makerspace sometime in the fall, the 3D printer will live in a closet and be available on request, according to librarian Julie Holden.

A Variety of Tools in Maker Space

Warwick’s Idea Studio makes its printer and other equipment available on a walk-in basis to patrons during 14 hours of “open studio” time weekly.
In addition to the printer, Warwick offers:

Arduino Uno, a small computer that allows amateur and professional programmers alike to create interactive devices like thermostats, motion detectors, or simple robots.
Raspberry Pi, an even smaller computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV and is usually programmed to do one job. Barta is using raspberry pi to loop videos that can save the time and expense of creating posters, putting them up, and taking them down. One library patron used the little computer, the size of a credit card, to create a home weather station, Barta said. The library has six of them.
A suite of professional graphic design and editing tools that encompass everything from web development to moviemaking
A high quality scanner that not only digitizes photographs, slides, and documents, but restores color and enables editing of text
Two pieces of equipment that convert music on vinyl records or cassette tapes into modern media player format
A laser cutter that works on paper, cardstock, vinyl, fabric, and other materials.
A video camera that can be used in the library.

"Maker" Movement's Many Forms

FAB LAB FAQ

        But Barta said that at its heart, the Idea Studio is not about the stuff.
        Shawn Wallace of AS220, the arts collaborative in Providence, agrees. He runs a lab with a suite of creative digital tools similar to the library’s, but they’re aimed at more technically sophisticated amateur and professional users. AS220 staff trained librarian Holden to use the 3D printer at the Cranston library.
        “3D printing is the poster child of the maker movement. It makes the headlines,” Wallace said, “but there are a lot of other things going on.”
        The maker movement as a whole has evolved from developments like YouTube and video cell phones, which have enabled people to connect with one another as never before, encouraging an innate human willingness to share information and ideas, he said.
“A lot of people are heading into the electronic field,” he said, with a great deal of overlap among artists, designers, and programmers. AS220’s Fab Lab, short for “Fabrication Lab” is one of hundreds of such digital innovation centers across the United States and in 29 other countries that have been set up by partnerships between local groups and MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.
        The Fab Labs, each with the same array of digital equipment worth about $50,000, are testing grounds for research done at the Center for Bits and Atoms on computerized fabrication and innovative, open-source software. The labs also serve as training centers for the next generation of science and technology educators – including those working in the public schools, according to a Fab Lab website.
         Depending on the locale, the projects under development in the worldwide Fab Lab network range from advanced computer networks to analytical instrumentation for agriculture or health care, and even custom housing.
        “These collections of skills are becoming part of a new literacy,” said Wallace, of AS220. It’s natural that libraries would want to tap into that,” he said.

Libraries As Community Hubs

      For the Warwick library, “the real shift is from repository to community hub,” Barta said.
   “I think we really want people to see the library as a place they can better themselves and have fun,” Barta said in an email.
     ”Some people will do that through books, but I think more and more research shows that people learn in a wide variety of ways, not just reading. So we want to offer different options.
     “ But we also want people to come together and socialize. There are so many interesting people that come through our doors every day that have really amazing skills that we would have never known about had we not tried to reach out in some way. The Idea Studio is one of the ways to reach out and grab those people,” Barta said.
     For Barta as a librarian, “there’s a lot of legwork to all this stuff.”
     “You need programming and people to come through the door,” he said. “You have to stay at it all the time.”

THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: Franklin Roosevelt's Boyhood Home Preserves the Legacy of U.S.'s Longest-Serving President

1/19/2014

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF - President Franklin Roosevelt reviewing troops during World War II. Courtesy: The Franklin Delano Rooesevlet Library and Museum

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum

By Linda Lotridge Levin
Rhode Island Library Report

Franklin Delano Roosevelt revolutionized the American presidency in so many ways: He is the only president to be elected to four terms; his presidency marked the beginning of what today is called “big government” with the expansion of federal agencies and the adoption of a number of social insurance and welfare programs, most notably Social Security; he was the first president to use the airwaves on a regular basis to connect with the citizens; and he was the first president to have his own library to house his papers and memorabilia.

WHISTLE STOP - Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt campaigning, 1932. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

FDR’s political career did not begin when he was elected president. Before World War I he was a state senator in New York; he then served as President Woodrow Wilson’s under secretary of the Navy, and after his partial recovery from polio, he became governor of New York in 1928. Four years later he was elected president of the United States.
By 1938 Roosevelt had collected a prodigious amount of materials – speeches, letters, memos, and, of course, clippings from newspapers and magazines. An avid reader and a collector of books and stamps, he enjoyed acquiring curios and bits of memorabilia, which he often placed on his desk in the White House, periodically replacing them with new pieces.

According to an article in Prologue magazine, FDR collected everything: more than a million stamps in 150 matching albums, 1,200 naval prints and paintings, more than 200 fully rigged ship models, 15,000 books, including a number of volumes on naval history.
No existing institution, not even the Library of Congress, had room for it all, and FDR could not bear to think of breaking it up.

Mindful of the size and unusual scope of his collections, he admitted, “Future historians will curse as well as praise me.”
So, he decided he needed a repository for everything. It would be on the grounds of his childhood home in Hyde Park, New York, a place he cherished and visited as often as he could throughout his presidency.

Mindful of the size and unusual scope of his collections, FDR admitted that "Future historians will curse as well as praise me."

The Story of the Library

    By April 1937 President Roosevelt had sketched the plans for the building that would house books and memorabilia.
    He asked his friend Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning naval historian, to help him organize the building’s contents. Otherwise, Roosevelt wrote, “this material will be available (only) in scattered form – throughout libraries and private collections.”
    The president’s concern was that this would hinder future scholars attempting to write accurate and complete histories of his life. (At that time, once the president left office, his papers and memorabilia went to his survivors, the Library of Congress or other public institutions.)
    The President and his mother, Sara (she owned the property), set aside sixteen acres on the estate, close by the family’s home on the Hudson River a short drive north of Poughkeepsie. He hired an architect to design the building, but supervised the construction himself as often as he could get away from Washington.

It was FDR’s friends who raised the money to construct the library-museum, setting a precedent for later presidents looking to finance their libraries. In the end, 28,000 people collected $376,000. That figure in today’s dollars would be more than $6 million, which is roughly what

FDR’s ORIGINAL sketch for the Roosevelt Library, April 12, 1937. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

President Bill Clinton’s Library in Little Rock, Arkansas cost.
    Ground was broken on September 14, 1939, and the library-museum was dedicated on June 30, 1941, just five months before the United States entered World War II. FDR then donated the building and its contents to the federal government, to be administered by the National Archives.
    The lovely little two-story building is built of Hudson Valley fieldstone with a steeply sloping roof, a style similar to that of the Dutch Colonial buildings in the area.
    Originally the library was a long rectangle, but in 1972 additions were built on either side to house the papers of FDR’s wife, Eleanor. With only a few modest changes, the library and museum remained unchanged until the winter of 2009, when it closed for extensive interior renovations to bring the archives and museum up to National Archives standards for the long-term preservation of historic collections.
    This included new drainage, plumbing, and roofing systems and new electrical, security, fire protection, and other systems. Fittingly, for a building designed by a president who spent almost half his life in a wheelchair, the renovations made the building fully accessible to visitors in wheelchairs.
    A public ceremony rededicated the completed project on June 30, 2013.

THE EXTERIOR of the FDR Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

Visiting the Library and Museum

    You could, of course, simply go online at www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.
to find out what is in there.
    But a visit is mandatory if you really want to explore the life and presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
    The museum’s newly configured exhibits were financed with $6 million in private funds that were raised for the renovation by the Roosevelt Institute, the Library’s private, nonprofit partner.

The Exhibits

    Now the exhibits, some of which are interactive, incorporate Eleanor’s role as they tell the story of the Roosevelt presidency.
    The museum, according to its website, is “immersive,” allowing visitors, both children and adults, to use touch screens to “listen” to key documents being discussed by historians, and to see the disabled president’s crutches and lift a lever to feel how much weight he had to haul around when he used them. In fact, this is the first time the museum has really explored the president’s disability.
    Throughout Roosevelt’s presidency, his staff, in particular his press secretary, Stephen T. Early, insisted that the chief executive never be shown either in his wheelchair or using his crutches, images that might make him appear weak or less than capable of running the country.
    As difficult as it is to comprehend in today’s wildly media-centric society, the press photographers and movie makers of FDR’s day readily agreed to the demand. Thus, there are only a few photos today of the president in his wheelchair or “standing” on his crutches.

In addition to the crutches, another of the most powerful exhibits is FDR’s Ford Phaeton, made especially for him with hand controls. The president loved nothing more than to drive visitors around his Hyde Park estate in this hunter green convertible, and as you look at it it you can feel the presence of the

FAVORITE CAR - The 1936 Ford Phaeton, with special controls that allowed FDR to drive. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

disabled man enjoying a moment of normality.
Roosevelt and his press secretary came up with the idea of having the president speak over the radio on topics of great importance to the public, something they dubbed Fireside Chats.
These “chats” were wildly popular with Americans during the dark days of the Depression, and visitors to the library can sit in an area complete with period furnishings and a radio and listen to the president speaking to the country.

RARE VIEW - Roosevelt fishing from a canoe near the polio treatment center he founded in Warm Springs, Georgia. His leg braces are visible. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

If you want more information about FDR and his presidency, you should head upstairs to the research room.
Anyone can obtain credentials. (Ask at the front desk in the museum.) The research room is where you will find the scholars who write the books and articles about almost any aspect of Roosevelt, his family, his White House staff, his presidential advisers, and just about anyone who ever had a connection to him.

FDR AS SPHINX - This paper-mache caricature was created for a skit during the 1939 Gridiron satirical review put on by White House news correspondents. It poked fun at FDR's prolonged refusal to say whether he'd run for a third term. FDR got such a kick out of it that he sent it to his presidental library. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library.

    If you think your great-grandfather might have written a letter to FDR, it’s possible that the letter could be in the library’s archives.
    So ask one of the helpful archivists to hunt it up for you. Or you may want to look at documents relating to the Depression and how it affected your community or your state.
    Or sit down and read through some of the vast collection of books, many of which belonged to FDR himself. You could end up finding enough information about some topic you are interested in to write your own article or book.
   Researchers should be pleased to know that each year the library puts more and more documents from the archives online so anyone can use them.

   (See the website to find out what is available: www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.)
    When you complete your visit to the library and museum, step next door to the Wallace Center, named for Henry A. Wallace, FDR’s secretary of agriculture and then the vice president during his third term.
    Opened in 2003, the modern building contains an auditorium where historians and others give talks videotaped for C-Span. Smaller rooms host talks and other activities.
    The lobby features a mosaic tile map on the floor depicting the town of Hyde Park as FDR would have remembered it. As you walk around the map, you will see why the 32nd president loved the area.

Have lunch or a snack in Mrs. Nesbitt’s Café, named for Henrietta Nesbitt, a neighbor of the Roosevelts who went to the White House as their cook.
As you munch on a sandwich or a salad, consider that ironically FDR found her food, at best, pedestrian and often complained when he was forced to eat a tuna salad for his lunch day after day. Sadly, her dinners were not much more creative, but Eleanor Roosevelt liked her and felt she was simply doing

"ELEANOR & FRANKLIN" - This sculpture of the first couple greets visitors at the Wallace Visitor Center. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

her best during the Depression to keep the White House meals on a budget.
After lunch you go across the lobby to the New Deal Store to buy a book about the Roosevelts or a few souvenirs of your visit. But save the afternoon to tour the Roosevelt home, a short walk from the library and the Wallace Center.

The Roosevelt Home

    The original part of the house known as Springwood was built in the early 19th century in the Federal style and then was remodeled in the Italianate style of architecture in the middle of that century.
    Until her death in 1941, the house was owned by FDR’s mother, Sara. His father had died 40 years earlier while Franklin was a student at Harvard.
    When he and Eleanor married, they lived in a brownstone in Manhattan, but they spent weekends at Springwood. As Franklin and Eleanor’s family grew and his involvement in politics expanded, he and Sara had two large fieldstone additions built on either side of the house, giving it the look and feel of a country estate.
    Even after he became president, FDR as often as he could took the train (he hated flying) from Washington to this home on the Hudson that he loved so dearly. During those years, the house saw a procession of visitors from kings, queens and princesses to prime ministers and a host of politicians.

SPRINGWOOD - The Roosevelt family home. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

Some sought asylum from the war in Europe as the president’s guests; others came north from the capital to talk business in a more relaxed setting. As you walk through the house, you can imagine Winston Churchill and FDR, drinks in hand, seated in front of the fireplace in the library, plotting war strategies.
On the second floor you will see FDR’s bedroom, his iron braces by his bed, and you can feel his presence. Little has been changed in the home since the Roosevelt family lived there, and the guided tour leaves you with a strong sense of the role they and their home played in 20th century history. After you leave the house, be sure to visit the nearby Rose Garden, where Franklin and Eleanor are buried.

THE STONE marking the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

    After his mother died, FDR donated the estate to the American people on condition that his family maintained a lifetime right to use of the property.
     Shortly after he died, the family transferred the estate to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
    Today the home is a national historic site and receives more than 100,000 visitors annually.

Visiting the Library

If you would like to do research at the Library, you might want to begin by calling the research room (845 486-1142) to ask if they have what you are looking for. For additional information about using the research facilities, go to http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/contact.html.

Additional Information

For additional information about the Roosevelt Library and Museum and the Home, see the following sources used for this article:

New York Times, November 20, 1939: “Placed in Cornerstone: Papers Dealing with Roosevelt Library Put in Receptacle.”
New York Times, July 1, 1941: “Roosevelt Hands Archives to Nation; Dedicating Hyde Park Library of Epochal Era, He Looks to America Ever Free.”
Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940 (New York: Random House, 1993).
“The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1928-1936,” (New York: Random House, 1938).
Cynthia M. Koch and Lynn A. Bassanese, “Roosevelt and His Library,” Prologue, Summer, 2001.
www.biography.com/ Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are many biographies of President Roosevelt. One of the most recent and most complete is FDR by Jean Edward Smith (New York: Random House, 2007).

WORLD WAR II ALLIES - Russia's Joseph Stalin, FDR and Winston Church of Great Britain meet in Teheran, Iran, Nov. 29, 1943. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

News Briefs

1/19/2014

A roundup of recent news from library sites and other news outlets

Chafee "Level-funds" Libraries - Again

     Governor Lincoln D. Chafee has proposed the same amount of library funding for the fiscal year 2015 as this year, continuing the recent pattern of neither cutting – nor increasing – state support of local libraries.
      It’s a glass-half-full situation, if you’re the cheerful sort and appreciate the fact that the state hasn’t slashed library spending during the recession.
      Or it’s glass-half-empty, if you’re grumpy and a library official having to continually provide the same services with the same money, minus inflation.
      Overall, the governor proposes spending $11.1 million: $7.8 million to supplement local library budgets; $2.3 million for library construction; and $1 million for the Statewide Reference Resources Center, which includes the askRI.org information service, operated by the Providence Community Library.
      While state support has been frozen for a number of years, it’s at a relatively high level, nationally.  Rhode Island is the envy of many other states, which are stingy when it comes to support for their libraries.
     The state Office of Library and Information Services has a local aid summary on its Website.

New Director for Providence Public Library

H. Jack Martin, a former official of the New York Public Library, this month takes over as executive director of the Providence Public Library, replacing the retiring Dale Thompson, who held the post for 25 years.
Martin, in an interview with the Providence Journal’s Karen Lee Ziner last December, says he wants library patrons, staff and city residents involved in a new strategic planning process. Thompson, meanwhile, told Ziner she and her husband have sold their house in Providence and will travel the country for the next few years in an Air-Stream trailer.

H. JACK MARTIN - New executive director for Providence Public Library. Photo: Providence Public Library Website

    Martin has previous experience with the PPL, where he worked two years, both in the art and music collection and in the library’s former branch system, according to a library news release.
      Martin’s most recent post was as associate director of the Online Leadership Program for Global Kids Inc., a New York not-for-profit organization. He worked 11 years with the New York Public Library system, including a post as assistant director for public programs and lifelong learning.
      An immediate past president of the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, he’s a graduate of the University of Georgia and has a master’s degree in library and information science from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
      Read Karen Ziner’s story at the Journal Website; and the PPL news release at its Website.

PLC Running New Pre-kindergarten Program

     The Providence Community Library is beginning Ready for K! – a new program to help children who have little or no literacy and language skills as they get ready to go to kindergarten.
      The program is financed with a $250,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and will allow the multi-library system to partner with the Providence Plan’s “Ready to Learn” school readiness program.
      Four-hundred 400 children and their families are to be involved during the two-year program.
      During the spring and summer, the program will bring the children and their parents and other caregivers twice a month to the PCL libraries; the children will be issued library cards, and participate in activities to boost skill levels. Families will be able to borrow “literacy kits” that include books and games.
      AmeriCorps workers will help with the program, which also involves the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative.
      According to a newsletter from the Friends of Rochambeau Library, one of the PCL’s libraries, the Providence school department estimates that “fully half of incoming Providence kindergarten students lack any structured early learning education experience.”
      Read the PCL’s news release.

Arlington "Reading Room" Reopens as a Full Branch of the Cranston Public Library

11/26/2013

THE ARLINGTON BRANCH of the Cranston Public Library has reopened after renovations to the former Arlington Reading Room in the Cranston Senior Center. Credit: All photos by Brian C. Jones, R.I. Library Report

By Brian C. Jones
Rhode Island Library Report
    CRANSTON, R.I. – (Nov. 25, 2013) – Even standing room was at a premium today as some of the state’s top politicians crowded elbow-to-elbow with library advocates to mark the opening of the Cranston Public Library’s newest – and tiniest – branch.
      The occasion was the ceremonial opening of what is now the Arlington Branch, located in a wing of the Cranston Senior Center, 1064 Cranston St., and which was formerly the “Arlington Reading Room,” before a six-month renovation that was completed three weeks ago.
      The reconstruction, funded by a $198,000 federal grant, created a 543-square-feet space that is home to a range of modern library services, including new Internet-connected computers and a fresh collection of children’s and adult books.
      Still, it’s a small home, as several dozen library supporters and reporters discovered as they packed the branch’s main room alongside U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin and Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who recently announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor.

A Small, But 'Useable' Space

    Edward Garcia, director of the six-branch library system since 2012, acknowledged the branch’s diminutive footprint, but he said it will make possible big steps in providing new services to neighborhood children and teenagers, as well as older adults who come to the senior center.
      “We created, although a small space, a very useable space,” Garcia said.
      Among the new programs will be one in which graduate library students from University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media will work with neighborhood young people.

MAYOR ALLAN FUNG, right, says the renovated Arlington Branch, is a new library resource for all of Rhode Island. Rep. Jim Langevin is at left; Sen. Jack Reed, center. In the background, Providence Journal Reporter Gregory Smith.

The branch will also will partner with the city’s Pastore Youth Center as part of its outreach effort, Garcia said.
The Arlington library dates to 1895. Its building was demolished 25 years ago and replaced by the senior center, with space reserved for what became the Arlington Reading Room. But the configuration did not allow full library services, Garcia said, and the shelves were stocked only with donated books rather than those purchased by the library system.

According to Garcia, former director David Macksam and library trustees worked with Reed in securing the grant in 2006 from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for a new building to house a full-service branch, but suitable quarters could not be found.
With time running out, since the federal grant was to expire in September, 2013, Garcia recommended that the library remain at the senior center, swapping some space with the center’s gift shop, and completely renovating the reconfigured library area.

CHECKOUT - Patron Anthony Baffoni takes DVDs from Kathy Turcotte, library assistant, just before the ceremony marking the opening of Arlington Branch of Cranston Public Library.

     The branch now has the Cranston library system’s newest computers, Garcia said; a Wi-Fi router, whose signal extends to the first floor of the adjacent senior center; an all-new supply of books; and a lobby with a work table that can be used both by the senior center and school children doing homework.
      Kathy Turcotte, the library assistant who oversees the branch, said the new quarters, with large windows overlooking Cranston Street, is a “night and day” difference from the former reading room, which she said seemed dark.
       The renovated branch actually reopened Nov. 4, with the official program scheduled today.

Remembering a 'Driving Force'

ROBERTA COSTA, library trustee, greeted Sen. Jack Reed. Mayor Allan Fung is at left; and Rep. Jim Langevin at right. Mrs. Costa's late husband and library trustee, Edward Costa, led effort to upgrade the Arlington Branch.

Remembered as a forceful advocate for a revitalized branch was Edward Costa, a library trustee who died before the project was realized and whose widow, Roberta Costa, replaced him on the library board. Said Mayor Fung about Mr. Costa:
“I know he’s looking down at us, really beaming with pride with the fact that we are going to be able to help so many people in this community.”

Fung, perhaps broadening his focus now that he’s a gubernatorial statewide candidate, noted that Arlington Branch – which is part of the book and resource sharing network involving libraries throughout Rhode Island – is open to everyone.
“We all know our libraries aren’t just utilized by Cranston residents, they are utilized by people throughout the state, and this is a wonderful atmosphere where there is another resource for people throughout the state to come to,” Fung said.

Reed: Libraries Made a Personal Difference

    In a humorous moment, Garcia started to introduce Congressman Langevin as the next speaker. But in a stage whisper, Langevin suggested that Capitol Hill protocol indicated that Senator Reed go next.
      “Okay,” said Garcia, smoothly shifting gears, “I want to introduce Senator Reed….”
      “Age has its advantages,” quipped Reed.
     Reed, too, acknowledged Mr. Costa as a "driving

SEN. JACK REED, center, speaking during ceremonies marking opening of renovated Arlington Branch of the Cranston Public Library. At left, Rep. Jim Langevin; Mayor Allan Fung, at right.

force" in the project and as "someone who believed very much in getting this library once again to be a vital part of the Arlington community.”
      Recognized nationally for his sponsorship of major federal library legislation, Reed recalled his own debt to libraries while growing up in Cranston.
      “My first involvement with Cranston libraries was in the 1950s, when I walked up the steps to the Auburn Public Library at the corner of Woodbine and Park Avenue and went in there and found a whole world of information, ideas,” he said. “And, frankly, without that, I could not have been able to move forward in life.”
      Reed noted that libraries have advanced their roles beyond that of being only book repositories, with their public broadband computers allowing anyone access to the Internet, and services expanded to helping unemployed workers seek benefits and jobs.
      “By the way,” the senator added, “when we help libraries, we’re not only being right-minded, we are being pretty smart economically, because they are multipliers in terms of economic value, as well as community spirit and community relations.”

NEW BOOKS line the shelves of the renovated Arlington Branch. Previously, only donated books were stocked when the site was known as the Arlington Reading Room.

REP. JIM LANGEVIN, right, chats with Mayor Allan Fung. Langevin noted the impact of libraries on children.

     Finally getting his turn, Langevin also spoke about the powerful effect libraries can have on children.
       “I think you all remember that time when we got our first library card, and it gave you entree to a whole broader world,” Langevin said. He noted that libraries serve the whole community, regardless of income or status.
      “I’ve always looked at libraries as the great equalizer, because it didn’t matter your socioeconomic background,” the lawmaker said.

“You all had the same access to books and periodicals and all kinds of publications, and that’s so important for advancing knowledge.”

A Place for Old and New Generations

The library system spent $182,857 from the federal grant on the renovations and was able to keep the project local: the architects were from a Cranston firm, Saccoccio and Associates, with construction overseen by another city company, The Bailey Group.
One of the impacts of the Arlington Branch remaining in the senior center complex is the opportunity for young and older generations to sit side by side, as they both benefit from branch’s up-to-date information technology.

    Indeed, the branch’s Kathy Turcotte said that it serves the Gladstone and Arlington elementary schools, as well as the Hugh Bain Middle School.
      Karen Mellor, acting state chief library officer, noted in an interview that older people are sometimes on the wrong side of the “digital divide,” and with the branch’s new computers, they have increased opportunities to learn about new technology.
     Nancie Paola, co-director of the Cranston Senior Center, said she finds that elderly people are quick learners, even using the slow and out-of-date computers that have been available at the center. People who used to come to the center but have moved into nursing homes, she said, stay in touch with her via e-mail.
      And she predicted that computer-savvy senior center patrons are likely to be drawn to the library’s powerful new and speedier computers.
      “They don’t want old and slow,” Paola said.

KAREN MELLOR, acting state chief library officer, chats with Edward Garcia, director of Cranston Public Library after ceremony noting opening of Arlington Branch.

NANCIE PAOLA, co-director of the Cranston Senior Center, where the renovated Arlington Branch of the Cranston Public Library is located, says the center's elderly patrons welcome the branch's new and faster public computers.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - Sen. Jack Reed, who secured a federal grant to renovate the Arlington Branch of the Cranston Library, leaving after the ceremonial reopening of the branch.

Libraries Urged to Borrow Page From Political PIaybook to Win Community Support

11/25/2013

Expert tells advocates that 'passionate' and grassroots campaigns can help gain popular backing for libraries.

By Linda Henderson
Rhode Island Library Report
BARRINGTON, R.I. (Nov. 18, 2013) - The best way to market the library as essential to a community is to think of the promotion effort as a political campaign.
That was speaker John Chrastka’s advice to a group of nearly 75 librarians, trustees and friends organization at a meeting today at the Barrington Public Library.

WINNING SUPPORT - Consultant John Chrastka urges Rhode Island library advocates to adopt campaign techniques to build support. Credit: Linda Henderson, Rhode Island Library Report

Chrastka is a Chicago-area consultant, library advocate and trustee at his hometown library whose firm specializes in supporting associations with membership, recruitment, conference and governance activities.
   The most important factor in a successful campaign is the community perception of the “passionate librarian”, Chrastka said.
   Stressing that to gather support the library director and library itself must be viewed by their constituents as an institution, Chrastka shared polling data that said that most Americans support libraries. The numbers also show that voters don’t need to be library users to be library advocates.
   The goal of the campaign is to identify those advocates within the community.
   The advocates then need to emphasize the essential services to the community whether getting out the vote or just asking for support.

The Importance of the 'Ground Game'

    The library should be seen as a social leveler; an education partner; an economic development engine; a place of discovery; a personal refuge and an incubator, Chrastka said.
   Continuing the political metaphor, he talked about what motivates voters to come out to pass library-related measures on the ballot and differentiated library advocates from voters in general.
   To build advocacy the library staff, trustees and friends should be thought of as the campaign team, he said, and a “ground game” is crucial to success. Literally knocking on the doors of newcomers to town, of potential advocates and of town officials results in building strong ties to the library as a community treasure.
   Chrastka came back to finish the afternoon with a wrap-up and an invitation to join him at Trinity Brew House in Providence for further discussions that evening. He challenged the group to do homework based on his political campaign analogy timed to “threes”.
    He made suggestions for what could be done immediately (three hours) and what needed longer to accomplish (three days, three months and three years). He promised to be back in Rhode Island in three years to be updated on the progress of the group.
   Between sessions with Chrastka, the group was broken up to discuss six topics relating to the theme of the day. The topics were: Library trustee relations; Strengthening community ties; Demonstrating value; Library partnerships; Library as incubator and Connecting with the public. After a short discussion period facilitated by members of the sponsoring organizations each group reported on its suggestions for addressing its assigned topic. The participants used examples from their own libraries and brainstormed other ideas to share lists of potential solutions.

Geek the Library

   After the break-out sessions, Jennifer Bond of Bryant University and Aaron Coutu of the Cumberland Public Library presented an overview of the “Geek the Library” campaign that began statewide in September.
   The campaign was sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation nationwide and locally by RILA.
    Bond and Coutu explained the use of the word geek as a verb and shared stories of how their libraries and others in the state used the materials and guidance

to promote the 37 public libraries and one academic library (Bryant) who participated.
   It was deemed a success across the state and Coutu said that Cumberland will continue their programs through next spring to culminate with the annual Arnold’s Mills Parade on July 4th.
   The title of the meeting was "The Essential Library: Community Leadership Strategies."
   It was moderated by Karen Mellor, Acting Chief of Library Services at the RI Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) and was co-sponsored by OLIS, The Coalition of Library Advocates (COLA) and the Rhode Island Library Association (RILA).

(Editor’s Note: Linda Henderson, in addition to being a member of the Library Report, is chair of the board of trustees at the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library in Burrillville).

Story edited by Jean Plunkett

Turning 50, URI'S library school celebrates 3,000 graduates and considers the impact of the Digital Revolution

11/11/2013

U.S. SEN. JACK REED was among the speakers at the 50th anniversary celebration of URI's Graduate School of Library and Information Studies Nov. 8. He jokingly thanked the school for posting "my high school graduation picture" on the event's large screen. Credit: Brian C. Jones

    By Brian C. Jones
    Rhode Island Library Report
    WARWICK, R.I. – (Nov. 11, 2013) – In a celebration that both honored its graduates and grappled with the challenges of the Digital Revolution, the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies of the University of Rhode Island marked its 50th anniversary last Friday.
      U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, who is revered by the national library community for his sponsorship of major legislation supporting libraries, received a standing ovation from the crowd of 120 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel as he began his part in the speaking program.
       “This great school,” Reed said, “has helped produce outstanding individuals who are committed to making our libraries the center of not only intellectual life, but community life throughout this country.”

Reed also praised Joan Ress Reeves of Providence, who received a “special lifetime recognition award” from the library school for more than 30 years of citizen advocacy for libraries, nationally and in Rhode Island. One result has been that Rhode Island provides substantially more financial aid to libraries than do many other states.
“She has been a force for libraries,” said Reed, who also took the occasion to poke fun at both himself and the diminutive Mrs. Reeves: “I’m living proof that things come in small packages; Joan is living proof that good things come in small packages.”

JOAN RESS REEVES, a longtime citizen advocate for libraries, received a special recognition award during the library school's Gala celebration. Credit: Brian C. Jones

A Party With A Serious Side

RENEE HOBBS, director of the library school and the Harrington School of Communication and Media, talks with Barbara Stripling, president of the American Library Association. Credit: Brian C. Jones

But underlying the evening’s celebratory spirit were serious discussions about both the stresses and the opportunities confronting libraries, which have been rocked by a Digital Revolution brought on by powerful computer technology, as well as by budgets strained by stalled or reduced public funding.
Reeves alluded to the challenges in praising Renee Hobbs, who was the evening’s master of ceremonies and who in 2012 became the founding director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media.

    The Harrington school itself is an effort to stay current with the technology and other changes, by placing the library school under one umbrella with five other URI departments that have related disciplines.
      Calling Hobbs “visionary and energetic,” Reeves said that “God knows, you are going forward in a very difficult and very challenging time to do some very, very exciting things at this school.”
      Since its founding in 1963, the URI school has graduated more than 3,000 students, and thus has had a profound effect, not only in Rhode Island, but throughout New England and beyond, where its alumni have joined the staffs of hundreds of public, private, academic and other libraries.
      The URI school is one of only two programs in New England that offer masters degrees in library and information sciences and that are certified by the American Library Association; the other is Simmons College in Boston. Most libraries require their key employees to have masters degrees.

The Internet's Wide Reach

KEYNOTE SPEAKER David Weinberger. Credit: Brian C. Jones

The enormous impact of computer technology and the Internet was the theme also of the evening’s keynote speaker, David Weinberger, co-director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School Library.
While upbeat about the promises of technology, such as the increasing popularity of electronic books, the vast storage capacity of computers and the Internet’s ability to instantly connect millions of people, Weinberger said that the fast-moving changes are also difficult to comprehend.

    “We can do things we can’t imagine, and maybe we’ll never be able to grasp it, because our brains are not wired for what happens when you get two billion people talking together,” Weinberger said of the Internet’s linking ability.
      Weinberger said the very idea of “information” as a confined, definable set of facts has been made outdated by the Internet’s infinite appetite.
      In one example, he cited a randomly selected article in the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, which devoted 6,000 words to one individual; the next edition reduced the length to 3,000 words; and, in a later one, the length was halved again.
      “Which means that the Encyclopedia Britannica is sitting there throwing away knowledge,” he said. “They had it, and they threw it away, not because they don’t like knowledge, not that they wanted to, but that’s the way the medium worked.”
      In contrast, Wikipedia, the enormous Internet-based encyclopedia, has 1,400 words about the same man, but also many links to other sources. When someone follows even some of those links, those new sites have links, too, Weinberger said, the result being “links to the links to the links to the links,” a process he said has changed “the shape” of knowledge. These linkages promote online conversations and debates in which understanding of knowledge constantly evolves.
      Weinberger also contended that there is merit in the openness of many Internet sites in accepting all sorts of inputs, even those which at first seem trivial.
       “It turns out there is value in having You Tube accept the lowest sort of dreck that there is,” Weinberger said, “because you get stuff that may not look valuable, but turns out to be.”
      An example of the danger of excluding material, he said, might be a well-meaning decision by operators of a news site to exclude gossip. But those reports might prove valuable to researchers who study the effect of media on female celebrities. “You cannot anticipate what people are going to want to do, what their interests are,” he said.
      Libraries – and the URI library graduate school – can be among the winners in this revolution, Weinberger said, because they are uniquely equipped to facilitate the kind of “knowledge network” enabled by the Internet.

     “Libraries can increasingly provide access to everyone,” he said, especially as more sources of knowledge are made available on the Internet, and because they can facilitate the conversations and discussions that are the heart of the Web’s approach to knowledge.
      He suggested something of a referee role for librarians, who he said can help patrons sort through the Internet’s raucous conversations, pointing out arguments worth paying attention to, since some discussions “too often spin off into the tawdry and to the silly.”
      “You are perfectly positioned – perfectly positioned – to lead libraries and to continue to educate the next generations of librarians, to embrace a network that is understood in the depth of its conversational quality, not just in its informational benefits,” Weinberger said. “You’re in a perfect position to move into your next 50 years, and I can’t wait to see as many of those years as I’m allowed to.”

“You are perfectly positioned – perfectly positioned – to lead libraries and to continue to educate the next generations of librarians, to embrace a network that is understood in the depth of its conversational quality, not just in its informational benefits."
-- David Weinberger on the potential impact of the Internet on URI's Library School

The Library School at 50

    At its half-century mark, the URI library school has a current enrollment of 150 students. It has proved to be resilient in responding to changes in how and where it teaches students, moving from its initial location in Providence to the main URI Kingston campus, as well as later providing satellite teaching sites in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and then moving into online learning.
      The school also has periodically weathered crises in accreditation, twice losing approval of the American Library Association’s committee on accreditation, in part because the university did not seem to provide sufficient resources. But the school has bounced back each time, with the help of letter writing campaigns and other support from its alumni and other library advocates.
      The school is now enjoying a seven-year accreditation approved by the ALA in 2010. In fact, among those at the anniversary dinner were two top ALA officials, Barbara Stripling, president, and Maureen Sullivan, immediate past president.
      Renee Hobbs, in addition to her role as overseeing the overall Harrington School of Communication and Media, is also serving as the library school’s director. In an interview before the Gala, she said that a curriculum revision is underway, and the school is adding more faculty members.

Honoring Its Graduates

URI used the 50th observance to honor five of its graduates for “leadership innovation and service” to the library and information services profession:
* Dr. E. Gale Eaton, a 1974 graduate and director of the school from 2006 to 2012. Currently chair of the Rhode Island Coalition of Library Advocates, a group founded by Joan Ress Reeves and other library supporters, Eaton “has been a pioneer in online education for youth services,” the school said. “She offered the first online GSLIS course with innovative technology and pedagogy, in response to student need for more accessible scheduling. She developed URI’s first digital services to youth course. Her early research on spatial cognition and wayfinding explored how library design may support or hinder intellectual inquiry, and her 2006 book, Well Dressed Role Models, probed the way women’s portrayal in juvenile biographies can support or limit what young readers expect from their own lives.”

* Edward Garcia, a 2008 graduate, now director of the Cranston Public Library. The citation said: “Under Ed Garcia’s leadership, the Cranston Public Library became a pilot site for a digital literacy initiative through a partnership with Broadband Rhode Island. The library also recently became the first public library in Rhode Island to have a 3-D printer and to host workshops where the public can use this innovative technology. Garcia also worked on a

THE LIBRARY at the University of Rhode Island

grant with the Confucius Institute at the University of Rhode Island that led to the creation of a Chinese collection at the Central branch library in response to the growing needs of Chinese-speaking citizens in Cranston.”
     * Dr. Nancy Mattoon Kline, a 1973 graduate, who served more than 30 years at the University of Connecticut Library. The citation said: “Dr. Kline’s research and publications include her dissertation: Technological Change and Bibliographic Instruction: a Delphi Study of American Academic Librarians' Views. She also contributed numerous articles to professional journals from 1973 to1997. Her work informed her research and writings while providing innovation for academic librarians to reach out to transform their instruction programs especially with librarians as liaisons to departments.”
      * Janice McPeak, a 2000 graduate, is Public Health Advisor at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Office of Communication and Education. The school said that McPeak previously was a systems librarian at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and that she worked on projects such as Docline, MedlinePlus, NIHSeniorHealth and GoLocal. URI said that previously, she “was a registered nurse and a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. Her military service included deployment to Fleet Hospital 15, Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, during Operation Desert Storm. She was also assigned to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where she received the Disabled American Veterans Award for providing outstanding care and service to meet the needs of Veterans.”
      * Dr. Fred Stielow, a 1980 graduate, vice president and dean at the American Public University System. The citation said that he is “a major innovator in online education and distance librarianship. His most recent book examines a decade of leading a cutting-edge academic library online, Reinventing Libraries for Online Education.” He has written or edited over 100 scholarly articles and has published more than a dozen books.
    In presenting Joan Ress Reeves with a “lifetime” recognition award, the URI school noted her long service as a library advocate, helping to form state and national policy, and establishing several organizations promoting libraries in Rhode Island.
      She is a member of the Library Board of Rhode Island, and chaired that state panel from 1993 to 2001. In 1986, she was part of an effort that amended the state Constitution, so that it now requires the General Assembly to “promote” public libraries as well as public schools. As a result, Rhode Island aid to libraries totals about $11 million annually, supplementing local budgets as well as paying much of the construction costs of new or renovated buildings.
      Reeves is a founder and chairperson emeritus of the Rhode Island Coalition of Library Advocates; a former trustee of the Providence Public Library; and she was a founder and past president of the Friends of the Rochambeau Library in Providence.
      On the national level, she has played an important role in White House conferences on libraries, and has held numerous posts with the American Library Association, including serving as co-chair of its Task Force on Reauthorization of Library Services and Construction Act, 1992 to1996.
      In accepting the school’s recognition, Reeves urged a new generation of advocates to step forward to promote public support for libraries and to be a force that “can make things happen.” And she also introduced two grandchildren, Daniel, 12, and Andrew, 10.
      “They are voracious readers,” she said proudly.

DAVID WEINBERGER, of the Harvard University Library Innovation Lab, the keynote speaker at the library school Gala, said our understanding of the nature of information is being changed by the vast resources of the Internet. Credit: Brian C. Jones

Story edited by Carol J. Young

Gale Eaton: A teacher, scholar and writer, whose love of learning has connected generations of librarians

11/10/2013

By Brian C. Jones
Rhode Island Library Report

    You expect librarians to give you the story straight, and Gale Eaton doesn’t mince words when she recalls her four years as a student at the University of Rhode Island’s graduate school of library science.
    “Library school, compared to actually working in libraries, was incredibly dull,” Eaton says.
    It’s a statement you might overlook, except that, more than 30 years later, Eaton became the school’s director, a post she held for six years. For three years before that, she was the assistant director. And for nearly a quarter century, she was a member of the school’s faculty.

    But, dedicated librarian that she is, Eaton doesn’t limit the story to just a sound bite, albeit a witty one. The complete story of her relationship with the school, Eaton recalled a few days before the Nov. 8, 2013 Gala celebrating the school’s 50th anniversary, is more complicated.
    The fact is that Eaton has deep affection for the school, now known as the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, part of URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media.
    And the full story tells us something about the character of librarians, as well as the school that has produced 3,000 of them. Just as importantly, it tells us, once again, not to fall into the trap of believing stereotypes, including those about librarians.
    If the graduates of the school are anything like Eaton, they are witty, tough, ironic, resourceful, skeptical and loyal. They are professionals, who are deeply passionate about their work, and crazy about the children, the teenagers and the men and women whose lives are changed every time they walk into a library.

E. GALE EATON, former director of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Photo taken at the Nov. 8, 2013 Gala celebrating the school's 50th anniversary. Credit: Brian C. Jones, Rhode Island Library Report

A Long Ride to an Affordable Education

    To begin the more complete story of E. Gale Eaton, and because librarians try not to leave out important facts, I should tell you that one reason Eaton enrolled in URI is that she was rejected by her first choice, Simmons College, the older, bigger graduate library program in Boston that is URI’s major competitor.
    Even today, it’s hard to believe that Simmons made such a blunder, because, by any measure, Eaton was the kind of star student that any university would be delighted to rope in. She’d just graduated, in 1969, from Smith College, which is not just any run-of-the-mill college; and she had finished with no ordinary academic record: magna cum laude, as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
    Eaton at the time was working as a “pre-professional library assistant” at the Boston Public Library. And the word around the Boston library was that Simmons, at least that year, didn’t want a lot of part-time students, which is what Eaton would have been.
    Eaton needed to work – her parents had three other kids to put through undergraduate college. And she also needed to go to library school, because her job at the Boston Public Library was conditioned on getting a master’s degree.

    There was another reason she chose URI. And again, not to sugarcoat it, that’s because URI was cheap.
    “I’ve been trying to remember what I paid for tuition, $45 a credit hour, or $45 for a 3-credit course,” Eaton told me in interviews by phone and e-mail. “Either way, it was cheap enough to manage on my $89 weekly take-home pay.”
     URI’s bargain tuition was no accident. When the school was founded in 1963, it was meant to serve not just Rhode Island students, but those from other New England states whose own public universities lacked similar programs. Under a New England Board of Higher Education “compact,” URI offered lower, in-state rates to non-Rhode Islanders.

"I’ve been trying to remember what I paid for tuition, $45 a credit hour, or $45 for a 3-credit course. Either way, it was cheap enough to manage on my $89 weekly take-home pay."

But the price break didn’t put Eaton on easy street: there was the matter of getting from Boston to URI. Once a week, she rode a Bonanza bus from Boston to Providence, a one-hour ride, and then a Rhode Island Public Transit Authority bus to Kingston, at least an hour. That held, too, for the return trip.
Maybe all those hours spent aboard busses for four years, starting in 1970, colored her perceptions of the overall graduate experience, so much so that when she finished the program, she “swore I’d never go near a library school again in my life.”

Channeling Dr. Bergen

But to be frank – and we trust that librarians are – the URI program wasn’t completely dull. Eaton attributes that to one professor in particular, Dr. Daniel Bergen.
In describing Bergen, Eaton references the TV program, “Touched by an Angel.” I never saw the show, which ran on CBS from 1994 to 2003, according to Wikipedia. But Eaton, being the open-minded librarian that she is, draws on many sources of knowledge. Professor Bergen, she says, was like a cross between the TV program’s do-gooder angels and “somebody who played football for Notre Dame.”

“We simply had a joyous time, throwing ideas around. You could think about anything you wanted to in Dr. Bergen’s class. And, of course, in the end, it all had something to do with libraries.”

Bergen planted “sort of an intellectual time bomb” in his classes, an explosive love of learning, decades later, that Eaton would try to pass along to her own students. Bergen’s assignments included writings by Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, who explored the link between power and knowledge, and also those of the “medium-is-the-message” philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, who developed theories of media and communication.
“We simply had a joyous time, throwing ideas around,” Eaton recalls. “You could think about anything you wanted to in Dr. Bergen’s class. And, of course, in the end, it all had something to do with libraries.”

A Detour to the Research Desk

    At this point in the story, we take a research detour, since Eaton, without saying so in so many words, suggests that we not take just her word for the sometimes low excitement level experienced by library students, not just at URI, but at similar programs in other states and countries.
    “There have been, over the decades, every so often, articles by scholars about why students hate library school – I kid you not,” Eaton says. And she mentions one in particular, written in the 1980s by Samuel Rothstein, the founding director of the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
    To be sure, Eaton points out, so that the reference is placed in context, the article did appear in an April First issue of the Library Journal. But it’s there, and you can locate it using your own or your library’s Internet-connected computer, through a simple Google search: Library Journal, v110 n6 p41-48 Apr 1, 1985, by Samuel Rothstein, an article entitled “Why People Really Hate Library Schools.”
    Rothstein’s conclusion, in part, according to Eaton, was “that people who go into librarianship tend to be very detail-oriented and critical of themselves and others, and that they had a bias towards not liking things as much as students in some other professions.”
    Eaton graduated in 1974 and was promoted at the Boston Public Library to the position of “Children’s Librarian One,” and she worked there three more years. Then she became supervisor for children’s services at the Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass., until 1984. With a recommendation from the angelic Dr. Bergen, she was accepted into a doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
    So the URI legacy is this: she “adored” her work at the Boston library. The same goes to for her work in Pittsfield. “And without a solid MLS behind me, I couldn’t have done that.”

In a Crisis, Support From Near and Far

The depth of the debt and affection that Eaton and other graduates feel for their URI program became very apparent in January, 1986.
That’s when the school, which has had various crises throughout its history, lost its accreditation with the American Library Association (ALA). Some on faculty felt the university was providing insufficient resources. According to Providence Journal articles at the time, the ALA found 25 problems with the program, including a shrinking faculty, a lack of a permanent director and poor control of satellite programs

it was running in Boston, Amherst, Mass., and Durham, N.H. Further, URI itself had considered scuttling the school. Eaton heard about the school’s troubles from fellow children’s librarians, and she joined in with hundreds of other alums in a campaign that included an energetic letter-writing barrage, urging the university to bolster the program and seek re-accreditation.

“I think that the university was kind of surprised by the depth and the extent of the support for the school by graduates and other members of the library community,” Eaton says. In a major step, the university in 1986 recruited as its director, Elizabeth Futas, who was widely respected by those in the library world, including officials at ALA, where Futas was a member of the executive committee.
“She was something,” Eaton says of Futas, who presided over a rebuilding of the program, hiring of more professors and other reforms. Futas “believed in librarianship as ‘the last noble profession,’ and her vision for the school had everything to do with intellectual freedom and a strong service ethic.”

“I think that the university was kind of surprised by the depth and the extent of the support for the school by graduates and other members of the library community."

    Two years later, ALA accreditation was back at URI, and so was Eaton.
    As an instructor, then as an assistant professor, then as an associate professor, Eaton taught three courses a semester, “channeling” Professor Bergen, courses that ranged from “foundations of library and information services,” to ethics and intellectual freedom, and to “reading interests” of children and young adults.
    In 1995, when Director Futas was only 50 years old, she collapsed and subsequently died, ironically during an American Library Association conference in Philadelphia. The university hired two more directors, including one selected after a national search, W. Michael Havener.             Eaton in 2003 was named assistant director, and in 2006, when Havener stepped down, she was appointed as the school’s top administrator.

Her Turn to ‘Be Responsible’

    Eaton had mixed feelings about the promotion.“It’s not something I really wanted to do, you know,” she told me. “I did not see myself as an administrator; teaching is so much more fun. But I guess it was my turn to be responsible.”
    A year later, in 2007, the ALA’s committee on accreditation put the school on “conditional accreditation,” for several reasons, including inadequate financial support and lack of broad-based planning and curriculum review. But in 2010, after an ALA’s review team had visited the campus, normal accreditation was granted, for seven years.
    According to a history of the school compiled by one of its professors, Cheryl A. McCarthy, Eaton’s administration oversaw “a continuous curriculum reform to reflect the changes in electronic information services and the demand for more online or blended courses.” Eaton also was leading the program during the creation of the Harrington School, which put six departments, including the graduate library school, under the same umbrella.
    One indication of how the school feels about Eaton’s leadership is that at the 50th anniversary celebration, she was among six persons honored. Her “excellence award” called her a “pioneer in online education for youth services,” saying she developed the university’s first “digital services to youth course,” and that she had created the first online course for students who asked for more flexible scheduling.
    Of the efforts for online learning, Eaton says that she, McCarthy and other professors at the graduate school “moved slowly and experimented. She said that “Cheryl McCarthy told me: ‘It’s all very well for you to teach by e-mail – you like to write.’ And I told her: ‘It’s all very well for you to teach on TV- you’re photogenic.’ Gradually, I think we worked out a balance of online and hybrid courses.”

Connecting the Generations

     When I asked Eaton about the library school’s impact, she said that graduates are credited for being well-versed in the essential skills they are required to have when they go into the real world. And thinking back to the accreditation process in 2010, she remembers the ALA visiting team being “really impressed by our students and alumni, by their loyalty and intelligence.”
    “So my feeling is that we have done yeoman’s duty in the field, and that we’ve managed to give students the skills that they need to be getting on with. We’ve managed to light fires with some of them, and not with others, which I think is normal.”
    “But I see students coming back and seeking out my colleagues, with great affection and gratitude, and think: ‘Yeah, we’ve made a contribution.’ ”
   Since leaving as director in 2012, Eaton has been named chair of the Rhode Island Coalition of Library Advocates, and she recently sent her publisher a manuscript of her biography about of Alice M. Jordan, who was the children’s librarian at the Boston Public Library from 1902 to 1940.

"Any time that I did something that impressed the older ladies who were teaching me the ropes, they would say: ‘Oh, Miss Jordan would like that.’”

    Jordan had been gone 30 years from the Boston Public Library by the time Eaton arrived in 1970. In fact, Jordan had died 10 years earlier, so Eaton never got to meet her. But as a fledgling librarian, Eaton could still feel Alice Jordan’s influence.
   "Any time that I did something that impressed the older ladies who were teaching me the ropes,” Eaton says, “they would say: ‘Oh, Miss Jordan would like that.’” In other words, Eaton says, three decades after Jordan had left, the other librarians “were still channeling Alice Jordan.”
    It’s the reason Eaton decided to write a biography about Jordan, and she documented a compelling story of a woman who was the embodiment of what it means to be a librarian.

    In the process, she also demonstrated something of the long reach libraries and librarians have into our lives. Jordan passed on an ethos to her colleagues, and they passed it on to Eaton, and Eaton to her students.
    It was “an ethos about service to children,” Eaton says, “that there was nothing more important that you could do - that it was absolutely essential to give children the best possible stuff; that children deserved not only good books, but also quality attention that you lavished on them – your sympathy, your empathy, the best intelligence and creativity that you could possibly give them.”
    It’s something that does not grow old or out of date.
    “If Alice Jordan were around now, she’d be fighting to get the best and most appealing materials onto children’s Nooks and Kindles and iPads,” Eaton told me.
    “She’d be delving into research on brain development and looking for connections: How does this translate into the development of spirit, compassion, and community? How can we best support the child’s developing mind? She’d be organizing spaces to entice children and teens. She’d be doing just what she always did, with new tools.”
    “And being Alice Jordan, she’d be doing it very, very quietly. You probably wouldn’t notice.”

    Story edited by Carol J. Young

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