BARRINGTON — The fact that a Pawtucket man is disabled does not give him the right to disrupt the quiet of the Barrington Public Library, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

Richard Pacheco walked into the library on County Road one day last February and handed an employee a card which explained that he had Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable movements and sounds that can be loud, distracting, and disruptive.

While Pacheco fulfilled his responsibility to inform the library staff of his disability, he did not ask for a reasonable accommodation as required by the law, according to a recent ruling by the regional Office of Civil Rights in Boston.

Pacheco’s lawyer, state Rep. Raymond E. Gallison Jr., of Bristol, said yesterday that Pacheco did ask for a “quiet area,” contrary to the narrative of the case outlined in the decision.

As a result of the incident, the library has set aside a quiet room apart from the main reference area, where patrons may conduct research online without disrupting others.

Library director Deborah Barchi said last week that she was gratified that investigators concluded the library did the best it could at the time.

She said she was so taken aback by the incident that she set out to learn more about serving patrons with disabilities.

Gallison, meanwhile, said Pacheco wants to appeal the administrative decision in the courts because he continues to suffer discrimination in other public places.

Pacheco was “totally humiliated” by the incident in the library and is extremely frustrated by his disability, Gallison said.

He said Pacheco has even undergone surgery in an attempt to curb the involuntary outbursts, without success.

The Office of Civil Rights acknowledged that eyewitnesses disagree on what was said last Feb. 20, the day Pacheco and his friend, Steve Dusza, visited the library.

After Pacheco handed a library employee a card explaining Tourette syndrome, he was shown to a computer on the main floor of the library, where he did an online job search for about 40 minutes.

The library did, in fact, offer an accommodation to Pacheco in that it ignored its own policy on the behavior of library patrons for the better part of an hour, Barchi said.

But library patrons were becoming anxious with Pacheco’s involuntary outbursts, she said.

“Until you actually experience this,” Barchi said, “you don’t know how loud and disruptive it can be in a public system.”

Gallison characterized the loud, involuntary sounds emitted by Pacheco that day as “yelps.” The sounds are unpredictable, he said, although they are more likely to occur when Pacheco is excited, as he was on that day, particularly when he encountered a job possibility online.

Eventually, Barchi was summoned from her second-floor office to deal with the situation.

Once Barchi had descended to the main floor, she first encountered Dusza, Pacheco’s friend.

Barchi said she told Dusza that “we would have to do something” to address the disruption or Pacheco would have to leave.

Dusza told the Office of Civil Rights, however, that Barchi said Pacheco would have to be quiet or leave the library.

Barchi said the pair left without giving her a chance to continue the conversation.

The Office of Civil Rights termed the differing accounts a “misunderstanding” between the library and Pacheco.

But investigators concluded that Pacheco left the library without actually speaking to Barchi or asking for an accommodation.

The burden was on Pacheco to “make a specific and supportable request for an accommodation” before the library was obliged to take action, according to the decision, signed by Ralph B. D’Amico Jr., compliance team leader for the regional civil rights office in Boston.

Gallison said he filed a civil-rights complaint with the Department of Justice on Pacheco’s behalf, asserting that the library ejected him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Department of Justice referred the matter to the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education.

Meanwhile, Barchi said she was so startled by the incident that that she sought to learn more about Tourette syndrome and other disabilities.

“Balancing the rights of the group versus the individual is never black and white,” Barchi said last week.

The public library is “all about access,” she said.

Barchi and a colleague, David W. Macksam, the director of the Cranston Public Library, organized a statewide workshop on disabilities, inviting the state’s mental health advocate as the principal speaker.

In addition, Barchi arranged for the entire staff of the Barrington library to receive training on ways to assist people with disabilities.

The conference led to the configuration of a laptop computer with wireless Internet access so it can be used in a room removed from the main floor of the library.

The Office of Civil Rights said a public entity is obliged to make accommodations to the extent that it does not alter the fundamental nature of the service it provides.

The Barrington library is fortunate that it is large enough to provide an out-of-the-way place for research, Barchi said.

A much smaller library with no space outside common areas would not be required to offer the same accommodation, she said.

gmacris@projo.com