The library as seen from the foot of Maple Avenue.
Ending tradition, the Red Bank Public Library will be open on Saturdays this summer, its board of trustees announced Thursday night.
The added hours, from 9a to 1p, will be partly offset by trimming three hours from the Friday schedule, delaying the normal opening until 1p, library director Deborah Griffin-Sadel said in a prepared statement.
The new summer schedule, which runs from June 19 to September 12, “will not require additional funding,” she said.
The change comes on the heels of a decision last month by the mayor and council to put most borough government operations on a four-day workweek this summer, with Fridays off. That move was described as primarily an effort to trim costs related to air conditioning the municipal building on Monmouth Street.
The council did not direct the library to accept the same change, but urged the library board to consider ways to cut hours while having the least adverse impact on the delivery of services.
In the statement, Griffin-Sadel said the library has studied usage patterns, and found that “hour for hour” since the facility reopened last year following a prolonged remodeling, Saturday has been the busiest day of the week.
She called the schedule change “a long overdue change that addresses the way people live today.
From the statement:
“Many people work during the week, and the only day they can make it in to the library is Saturday,” said Board President, Lauren Nicosia. “Our goal is to meet the needs of the public in as creative and fiscally responsible a manner as we possibly can.”
The library will be open Fridays and Saturdays 10a to 5p through Saturday June 13. Under the summer schedule, the library will be closed on Friday, July 3, and Saturday, July 4, for Independence Day and also on Saturday, September 5, for the Labor Day weekend.
Here’s the full announcement: Download Saturday Hours 2009
