Ideal vs Actual Meeting Room Policies

I thought this week I'd compare an actual meeting room policy to the idealized version from the ALA. Specifically, I'll be looking at the meeting room policy of the Eugene Public Library (PDF warning), my local library.

The EPL has three meeting rooms open for public rental. It may look like four at first, but the Tykeson and Bascom rooms are adjacent and can be combined into a single room. A fee is charged for the use of the rooms, and it's a bit more if the rooms are to be used outside the library's normal hours.

The ALA Interpretation suggests that the meetings ought to be restricted only by time, place, and manner, not by content. The EPL doesn't stress content in it's handout, but it does say that the rooms are open "to all persons or groups" which implicitly includes indicates they don't discriminate between renters based on the content.

There is a restriction on the frequency of reservations - no more than once per month. There is also a restriction that all meetings must be free and open to the public. But these restrictions are explicitly allowed for in the ALA Interpretation: "Written policies may include limitations on frequency of use, and whether or not meetings held in library meeting rooms must be open to the public."

The ALA Interpretation suggests that libraries include a section on admission fees and the EPL policy does, stating that meetings must be free and open to the public.

The only place I can see some conflict between the two statements is that the Eugene Library charges a fee to the group for use of hte room. The Interpretation encourages libraries to avoid this in order to preserve equitable access to all aspects of the library; this applies to indirectly restricting access based on the ability to pay. However, the fees are pretty low and I think it's clear that the EPL had intellectual freedom in mind when it drafted the policy.