Eric Khiev is looking to make a career change, and that’s why he was at the Providence Public Library last fall.
Khiev holds a bachelor’s degree in health studies and works a full-time job in the nonprofit sector, but he wants to jump into a position in technology.
At the downtown library, he was taking courses on Microsoft Excel – the ubiquitous spreadsheet software – training that would prepare him for Microsoft certification exams. Khiev wants to make himself more valuable in the job market, he explained as he waited outside a seminar room on the third floor, where a class was about to start.
“I still haven’t found my niche yet, so I was hoping that while exploring the different career paths and options that I haven’t looked into yet, I can find different kinds of jobs that may appeal to me,” he said.
Khiev, a Providence resident, is one of thousands who, since the COVID-19 pandemic, have taken advantage of a major transformation at the state’s largest public library that for generations has served as a top research and lending institution with extensive collections of books and historical archives.
As the library marks its 150th anniversary this month, patrons are now just as likely to visit the building at the corner of Empire and Washington streets in search of skills and training that may get them a job, earn them a workplace promotion or just give them a leg up on earning a degree.
The library offers everything from classes on Excel and computer coding to lessons on how to use 3D printers and build robotics to sessions on low-tech skills such as dressmaking and screen printing. All of it is free.
It’s part of a national movement that has been underway for years as public libraries diversify beyond being quiet places that contain row after row of bookshelves. In Rhode Island, public libraries across the state offer similar training programs, too.
But in many ways, the independent, nonprofit Providence Public Library stands apart.
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BUSY, BUSY: Owen Cuseo, center, leads a training class on operating vinyl cutters and heat presses at the Providence Public Library.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
More than six years ago, PPL undertook a $28.5 million overhaul of the library’s mid-20th century wing – the largest library renovation in state history – reshaping it into a bright, state-of-the-art facility. But just as the massive renovation project was completed and set to be unveiled to the public in 2020, the pandemic arrived and kept people away.
Now years later, long after shutdowns, social distancing and masking, the library has hit its stride. Officials say the library’s popularity is exceeding the expectations set when the remodeling was first envisioned years ago.
For example, in 2024, more than 1,500 people took basic courses on cybersecurity, videoconferencing, smartphones and the internet through the library’s “digital navigation services.” Meanwhile, PPL’s adult education professional development staff held 86 workforce training sessions attended by more than 1,100 participants across 19 organizations.
A basic metric – foot traffic into the library – is up 400% from before the renovation, according to Jack Martin, the library’s executive director since 2014.
“Our usage is skyrocketing,” he said recently as he stood in a bustling, bright atrium constructed just inside the Empire Street entrance.
But trouble is brewing, too.
Federal funding cuts being ordered by the Trump administration have touched off new worries. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is a primary source of federal support for libraries and museums nationwide, but its staff was placed on leave in the first week of April and the agency was effectively shuttered.
The developments left libraries and museums across the state and the country scrambling for answers.
PPL officials say only a small percentage of the library’s funding comes directly from the federal government, but there still could be indirect effects. Much of the library’s funds come from other groups and agencies – such as the R.I. Office of Library & Information Services – that depend on federal grants.
Tonia Mason, PPL marketing and communications director, says programming at the library will continue no matter how things play out in Washington, D.C.
“But things might have to be modified,” she said.
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Katt Cook, of Johnston, gets in some equipment training on a sewing machine in the workshop studio, where attendees can also learn laser cutting and 3D printing,
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
MASTER PLAN
Martin, previously the assistant director of young adult programs for the New York Public Library system, says that when he took the job in Providence, the library’s team had already decided to emphasize “a hyper focus on education” in its 2014 Master Plan.
And over the past 10 years, Martin and the PPL team have developed a growing network of opportunities for learners of all ages: courses that allow high school students to gain formal college credits; vastly reduced rates for citizenship classes intended to prepare learners for the naturalization test – a course that could potentially cost hundreds of dollars, compared to PPL’s $25 fee; and English as a second language courses, to name a few.
To Martin, today’s libraries stand out as “the last vestige of anything free in this country, and probably the globe,” he said. “They also serve as a safety net for people who can’t make it through the formal systems,” and institutions “trusted as safe spaces” by vulnerable members of the community.
Rather than going through traditional, often costly and sometimes time-prohibitive options, Mason says that many library programs are created with the idea that students “could walk out and get a job with these skills,” no additional training required.
It’s also designed for those who aren’t quite ready for the workforce.
Cristian Lopez, 17, of Central Falls, has been in the PVD Young Makers program since he was in middle school. Now a junior at the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence, Lopez is planning to apply to colleges such as the University of Rhode Island and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He says his participation in PPL’s workforce development programs has been an important motivator for him.
PVD Young Makers is one of the teen courses focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and math with the intention of preparing students for the 21st-century workforce, according to the library.
“Last year, I did computer hardware. Over the last few semesters, I have studied computer programming,” Lopez said before listing computer languages he learned such as JavaScript and Python. “I’ve taken robotics classes, built drones.”
The teen is one of dozens who participate in the program. Dozens more are enrolled in adult classes at the library for different courses at any given time.
“They fill up before I can even promote them,” Mason said. “All of our classes – for both adults and teens – have waiting lists.”
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Betty Tavares, library lead technology teacher, assists David Crawley, of Providence, during a Microsoft Excel class for adult English language learners.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
MORE SPACE, MORE HAPPENING
Library administrators give at least partial credit for the popularity of the programming to the library’s reconstruction.
Indeed, Martin acknowledges that he wasn’t impressed with the look of the library when he first arrived in 2014 – at least not the wing along Empire Street. The Providence Public Library, founded in 1875, opened the central library building 25 years later at 225 Washington St., constructed in a Beaux-Arts style with private donations.
The Empire Street wing was built in 1953, and by the early 2000s, the layout had grown painfully outdated with small spaces, narrow hallways, drab drop ceilings and fluorescent lights.
“It was depressing,” Martin said.
The renovation changed that, with workers ripping out the interiors of the 83,000-square-foot wing and filling the shell with open spaces, glass walls, warm lighting and a centerpiece staircase.
The $28.5 million cost was mostly covered by a mix of individual donors, charitable organizations, and federal and state funding, although some of the work was financed and is still being paid off.
Now the library is an inviting community hub that includes a “teen loft,” exhibit space, a 250-seat theater and a seminar room. The “innovation floor” on the ground floor features a workshop with equipment that at one time would have seemed out of place in a traditional public library – 3D printers, laser cutters, embroidery machines, even a recording studio.
“With more space, more has been able to happen,” Mason said.
The learning spaces contain high-tech touches that allow for digital presentations, features that were missing in the cramped makeshift classrooms in the old wing. Before, “we were trying to teach technology classes without having technology,” Mason said.
Even when the COVID-19 pandemic ruined the grand opening plans for the remodeled space in the spring of 2020 – and kept people away for months – enrollment in library programming grew remotely, Martin says, with the staff distributing laptops and other technology resources to learners during the shutdown.
“We actually flourished,” he said.
And while the library had to dig deeper into its endowment, it avoided laying off any of its 80 employees.
‘MORE CREATIVE’
PPL’s funding model is different than other public libraries, which are reliant on allocations from municipalities. In contrast, PPL largely depends on fundraising, donors and annual drawdowns from its endowment, which currently hovers around $30 million.
It “frees us up to be more creative,” Martin said.
Nevertheless, money is never far from the minds of the library administrators.
Right now, PPL is making ends meet, covering its $9.1 million fiscal 2025 budget with a mix of an endowment drawdown ($4 million); revenue from public sources such as grants, contracts, and state and federal funds ($3.5 million); contributions from foundations, corporations and individuals ($1.3 million); and rentals and merchandise sales ($330,000).
City Hall itself has provided very little monetary support to PPL since 2009, when financial issues forced the organization to split from Providence’s smaller branch libraries, which are now run by another nonprofit, Community Libraries of Providence.
PPL’s financial statements show that it invests abundantly in education programming, spending more than $1 million in fiscal 2025 on adult training and another $683,000 on various children’s initiatives.
Some of that programming goes well beyond typical classroom lessons.
The library has pioneered “Data for Good,” in which teens and adults are taught data analytics skills and then partner with local nonprofits to employ those abilities in real-life scenarios, using data visualization to assist with fundraising messaging and strategy.
In 2021, the library secured a three-year, $550,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to establish the Data for Good programming at other libraries nationwide.
PPL is also the home of a cutting-edge workforce development program that few libraries could even dream of: the Culinary Hub of Providence, or "CHOP" restaurant.
Attached to the library, CHOP operates as a fully functioning 125-seat restaurant with a full-service bar and a menu featuring items such as Peruvian fried chicken sandwiches and a Caribbean cobb salad. The operation doubles as a training center for culinary students at the Genesis Center, a Providence-based nonprofit providing adult education and career development resources. Genesis rents the space from the library.
The restaurant, which opened last October, boasts 30-foot ceilings, a book-themed interior design, and also serves as a classroom at PPL for more than 30 workforce development students.
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LEADING LIBRARIAN: Jack Martin, executive director of Providence Public Library, in the reconstructed Empire Street wing at the 150-year-old library in downtown Providence.
PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS[/caption]
MONEY ISSUES
Still, uncertainty looms ahead.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services “to the maximum extent of the law,” and he appointed a new acting director.
The little-known federal agency is a key source of funding for museums, libraries and cultural institutions nationwide. By early April, the staff had been placed on leave.
It’s now left local libraries trying to figure out the effects.
In postings on its website, the R.I. Office of Library and Information Services – the state’s library agency – said state aid to libraries would not be affected, but interlibrary deliveries and some library databases paid for with federal funds would be. The office also acknowledged that 45% of its annual budget comes from a grant program administered by IMLS.
The Rhode Island Library Association posted a message on its website expressing opposition to reductions at IMLS. “As library workers, we are concerned about the implications that the elimination of IMLS funding and staffing will have on Rhode Island libraries and its residents,” the association said.
At Providence Public Library, Martin is still trying to assess the effects of the situation since the library isn’t relying much on direct federal funding. But he expressed optimism that the Library Services and Technology Act – which provides libraries tens of millions of dollars administered by the IMLS – would be spared by Congress.
Still, there’s an urgency to secure money for 2026 courses if the federal funding freezes persist, according to the PPL. Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s proposed 2026 state budget includes nearly $14 million in total aid to libraries across Rhode Island – about $370,000 more than in the current budget.
“If we close the doors tomorrow, the entire community will suffer,” said Kate Aubin, PPL’s director of youth services. “So many are using our services to better their careers and lives. At its core, this is a community issue.”
Headaches over funding actually began months ago at PPL, before threatened cutbacks at the federal level. That’s when the library was notified that the R.I. Department of Labor and Training would not be able to continue to provide funding for the Excel training program because COVID-19 pandemic relief money was no longer available.
The DLT had provided a total of $140,127, according to DLT spokeswoman Edwine Paul – allocations that paid for planning and piloting the program, as well as three 12-week sessions. But the decrease in federal funding for the state’s Real Jobs Rhode Island did not allow DLT to maintain funding for the Excel program “at its current scale,” Paul said.
Next year could be a different story. Paul notes that McKee’s fiscal 2026 state budget proposal includes an additional $2.3 million allocation to Real Jobs RI, which she said could provide training for an additional 500 people.
“We hope to continue funding programs like this in the future,” Paul said.
As of now, Mason says, the library has found other sources of funding to make sure a more advanced fourth 12-week session will take place.
Library officials say the program, although it has been offered for less than a year, has shown strong results: About 60% of students who took an earlier level of the course secured new jobs after graduation, according to Siyamala Sumanthiran, class instructor and technology pathways coordinator at PPL.
These outcomes don’t surprise Sumanthiran.
“The industry needs Excel students,” she said – a concept that the library’s various workforce development partners have echoed as they weigh in on PPL’s workforce development programs.
Iris Giron, also of Providence, sees opportunities for advancement in her workplace with her new-found Excel skills. As of December, she’s now an industry-certified Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Associate thanks to PPL’s Excel courses.
Now she’s on track to graduate from the Excel program’s most advanced level and says her newly acquired knowledge will allow her to take on additional responsibilities at her cleaning company.
Giron has also been able to fill in technology skills gaps at her church, and has simultaneously had more opportunities to practice English through the class, she says.
Giron said she “didn’t know anything about how to use a computer” before she began taking basic courses at PPL.
(Clarification: The story was edited to clarify that the Culinary Hub of Providence is a program operated by the Genesis Center and is not technically a library program.)
