From projo.com
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Rhode Island news
7.1.2001 00:30
Census results push some town libraries onto new page
• In towns such as Lincoln, Scituate and Smithfield, population growth means libararies must beef up staffing and hours of operation to meet statewide standards.
BY DOUGLAS STEINKE
Journal Staff Writer
The recently released U.S. Census Bureau statistics will almost certainly foreshadow congressional redistricting, cause changes in federal aid distribution, and determine which neighborhoods advertisers decide to target.
But at libraries across Rhode Island, the census will determine what steps officials will have to take to meet newly revised state minimum standards for libraries. Those that are unable to meet the standards risk losing state aid.
Library officials in at least three towns -- Lincoln, Scituate, and Smithfield -- are finding themselves surprised by the numbers.
When the new standards were adopted by the state last October, library directors in Scituate were expecting to meet the requirements for towns with populations of less than 10,000.
Then the census was released earlier this year.
Scituate's population swelled to 10,324, from 9,796 in 1990. That meant that both town libraries would be facing the requirements for communities with more than 10,000 people but less than 20,000.
"We're at the lower end of the range, so if we could just get rid of 325 people we wouldn't be hit so hard," quipped Holly Albanese, director of the Hope Library in southern Scituate.
If those 325 people did not exist, neither the North Scituate Library nor the Hope Library would need librarians on duty during all of the hours they are open. They wouldn't have to hire children's librarians, either. That's because libraries in towns with less than 10,000 people don't have to meet those requirements.
In some instances, officials in Rhode Island have already taken steps to meet the standards. Others have been trying to figure out how they will do it by 2003, the deadline for complying with the new rules.
In Scituate, the children's librarian at the Hope Library is now required to finish a master's degree program. The town's other library, North Scituate, already has a children's librarian but will have to shell out $18,000 for a full-time reference librarian.
That money will come out of the town's coffers this year, but the cost of not complying with the standards would be far greater. Scituate's libraries could lose their state aid, which is$64,000 this year.
The new standards are inspired in part by ever-changing technology, said Barbara Weaver, chief information officer for the state's Office of Library & Information Services. They were last revised in 1983.
"We've had standards required since 1964 . . . to ensure that everyone in the state was able to receive at least a minimum level of service," said Weaver, whose agency doled out about $5.5 million to nearly 40 libraries last year.
For the first time, the standards require libraries to have telephone message systems in place when they are closed.
Patrons calling the Lincoln Public Library now get a recording, but cannot leave a message; that's something that will change shortly.
"It's something that can easily be done, and it's something that I've thought about doing over the past couple of weeks," said Lincoln director Becky Boragine.
Aside from upgrading the library telephone system, Lincoln is all set to meet the standards, Boragine said.
The library is already meeting the 60-hour-a-week requirement for staying open for towns that have 20,000 or more people. If the town's population had stayed at the 1990 count of 18,045, the library could cut back to 50 hours a week.
"We've been open 60 hours a week since 1994," Boragine said, "so we didn't have a problem with that. We went over the standards with someone from the state and we were meeting every category."
Not every library has had the same luck.
At the East Smithfield Library in Smithfield, director Elodie Blackmore has her work cut out for her.
"This is not a library where we can say, 'My job is this,' " she said. "Everybody wears different hats all the time because we don't have enough money to say, 'This is the reference librarian.' "
Smithfield has 20,613 people, compared with 19,163 a decade ago. Because there are two libraries in town (the other is Greenville Public Library), the two can pool their hours of operation to meet the standards.
Staffing requirements, however, apply to each library.
East Smithfield is currently looking to hire a young adult librarian in keeping with the new standards, which require towns with populations like Smithfield's to have someone devote part of their time to that specialty.
In library parlance, a young adult librarian typically deals with teenagers, while a children's librarian deals with those in preschool and elementary grades.
Blackmore, who called the new standards more "stringent," said she hopes East Smithfield can take advantage of waivers available to libraries that are unable to meet the requirements.
"We currently have two people in library school who will be going into some of the jobs [mandated by the standards]," she said. "But there definitely will be some problems."
DIGITAL EXTRA:
Visit projo.com's census section:
http://projo.com/news/census/
Census results push some town libraries onto new page
• In towns such as Lincoln, Scituate and Smithfield, population growth means libararies must beef up staffing and hours of operation to meet statewide standards.
BY DOUGLAS STEINKE
Journal Staff Writer
The recently released U.S. Census Bureau statistics will almost certainly foreshadow congressional redistricting, cause changes in federal aid distribution, and determine which neighborhoods advertisers decide to target.
But at libraries across Rhode Island, the census will determine what steps officials will have to take to meet newly revised state minimum standards for libraries. Those that are unable to meet the standards risk losing state aid.
Library officials in at least three towns -- Lincoln, Scituate, and Smithfield -- are finding themselves surprised by the numbers.
When the new standards were adopted by the state last October, library directors in Scituate were expecting to meet the requirements for towns with populations of less than 10,000.
Then the census was released earlier this year.
Scituate's population swelled to 10,324, from 9,796 in 1990. That meant that both town libraries would be facing the requirements for communities with more than 10,000 people but less than 20,000.
"We're at the lower end of the range, so if we could just get rid of 325 people we wouldn't be hit so hard," quipped Holly Albanese, director of the Hope Library in southern Scituate.
If those 325 people did not exist, neither the North Scituate Library nor the Hope Library would need librarians on duty during all of the hours they are open. They wouldn't have to hire children's librarians, either. That's because libraries in towns with less than 10,000 people don't have to meet those requirements.
In some instances, officials in Rhode Island have already taken steps to meet the standards. Others have been trying to figure out how they will do it by 2003, the deadline for complying with the new rules.
In Scituate, the children's librarian at the Hope Library is now required to finish a master's degree program. The town's other library, North Scituate, already has a children's librarian but will have to shell out $18,000 for a full-time reference librarian.
That money will come out of the town's coffers this year, but the cost of not complying with the standards would be far greater. Scituate's libraries could lose their state aid, which is$64,000 this year.
The new standards are inspired in part by ever-changing technology, said Barbara Weaver, chief information officer for the state's Office of Library & Information Services. They were last revised in 1983.
"We've had standards required since 1964 . . . to ensure that everyone in the state was able to receive at least a minimum level of service," said Weaver, whose agency doled out about $5.5 million to nearly 40 libraries last year.
For the first time, the standards require libraries to have telephone message systems in place when they are closed.
Patrons calling the Lincoln Public Library now get a recording, but cannot leave a message; that's something that will change shortly.
"It's something that can easily be done, and it's something that I've thought about doing over the past couple of weeks," said Lincoln director Becky Boragine.
Aside from upgrading the library telephone system, Lincoln is all set to meet the standards, Boragine said.
The library is already meeting the 60-hour-a-week requirement for staying open for towns that have 20,000 or more people. If the town's population had stayed at the 1990 count of 18,045, the library could cut back to 50 hours a week.
"We've been open 60 hours a week since 1994," Boragine said, "so we didn't have a problem with that. We went over the standards with someone from the state and we were meeting every category."
Not every library has had the same luck.
At the East Smithfield Library in Smithfield, director Elodie Blackmore has her work cut out for her.
"This is not a library where we can say, 'My job is this,' " she said. "Everybody wears different hats all the time because we don't have enough money to say, 'This is the reference librarian.' "
Smithfield has 20,613 people, compared with 19,163 a decade ago. Because there are two libraries in town (the other is Greenville Public Library), the two can pool their hours of operation to meet the standards.
Staffing requirements, however, apply to each library.
East Smithfield is currently looking to hire a young adult librarian in keeping with the new standards, which require towns with populations like Smithfield's to have someone devote part of their time to that specialty.
In library parlance, a young adult librarian typically deals with teenagers, while a children's librarian deals with those in preschool and elementary grades.
Blackmore, who called the new standards more "stringent," said she hopes East Smithfield can take advantage of waivers available to libraries that are unable to meet the requirements.
"We currently have two people in library school who will be going into some of the jobs [mandated by the standards]," she said. "But there definitely will be some problems."
DIGITAL EXTRA:
Visit projo.com's census section:
http://projo.com/news/census/
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