The Library Reform group depends upon the many actions of Library patrons and supporters to achieve our goal of making the PPL more responsive to the community.

WHAT YOU CAN DO.
Attend a board meeting.
The Providence Public Library (PPL) must post its meetings 48 hours ahead and must allow members of the public and press to observe these meetings. Meetings are posted on the Secretary of State's Town Crier page, the Providence Public Library website, and on Notjustthebuildings.

If you would like to join a core of PPL Watchers, please send us your e-mail address (contact us) and we will notify you of the meetings as we learn of them.
Write your elected officials.
Although the Providence Public Library is a private corporation, its sole purpose is to provide library services for the City of Providence. What's more, it is spending our taxpayer dollars to do so.

The Mayor has created the "Municipal Library Working Group," a committee composed of representatives of the city government and the PPL (but not the public) to establish the future relation between the City and the Providence Public Library. Let Mayor and your City Council Representative know your views.
Demand public representation on the Board of the Providence Public Library.
  • Tell the Providence Public Library Trustees that you are dissatisfied with the library's elitist way of operating without public representation.
  • Write the Mayor and let him know that library business is public business!
Require change.
When an organization has made as many disastrous mistakes as the Providence Public Library has in the last 3 years it is time for a change in its leadership. The creation of the ill-conceived "Empire Street Branch," at the cost of $200,000, which is now being abandoned after only a year and a half of operation is grounds enough, some would say, to replace the top library administrators.
Help save Washington Park.
The Washington Park community no longer has a branch library. For more information on this problem, click here.
Join a Friends Group.
Four of the branches, Rochambeau, Mount Pleasant, Smith Hill, and Wanskuck, have Friends groups. These organizations provide a direct link between the library and the community. They have enabled their branches to become stronger and helped to withstand pressures from the library administration to close them down. If you use any of these branches, consider becoming a Friend. The librarian at your branch can give you the name of the president or contact person for the friends group associated with that branch.
Start a Friends Group.
Presently there are no friends groups at Knight Memorial, Fox Point, Olneyville, South Providence, or Washington Park. If you are interested in starting such a group at one of these branches, contact us, and we will put you in contact with like-minded persons in your neighborhood.