The Windsor Public Library board is reviewing a proposal that would hire four new part-time people to open neighbourhood libraries on Fridays.
Fontainbleu, Seminole, Sandwich and Chisholm branches are all currently closed year-round on Fridays while Forest Glade and Bridgeview branches lose Friday hours in the summer.
The proposal is to open those community libraries on Friday year-round from 9am to 5pm beginning in May 2019.
At en estimated cost of $98,412 a year, Windsor Public Library CEO Kitty Pope says the cost of the new hires can be absorbed in the current budget the system is given.
The board is being asked to keep hours status quo at all of its other branches.
Pope says the expanded hours are something customers have been asking for.
"Customers have been saying our smaller libraries need to be on Fridays for a long time."
The Windsor Public Library Board regular meeting held at the Central Public Library branch on August 21, 2018. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
She feels the move would be well received.
"[Because] we get that complaint quite regularly, some will say, 'I was at the library on Friday and you're not open.'"
Pope adds the report is also recommending the Central branch hours be kept at the temporary location at city hall after the transition is made in July 2019.
"Are folks going to want to be studying and doing research on Sundays at city hall? Do we need to be open earlier, before 9am? All those kinds of things we don't know so, we'll be doing a lot of studying and a lot of testing in those first six months."
Pope understands the board's decision to defer the report on expanded hours.
"I think for long-standing board members, they've been thinking about this issue for quite a long time. I think perhaps for our newer board members, and we have a handful of those, that I think they wanted to do a little more in-depth research and thinking about it before they actually make the decision next month."
The library board deferred the expanded hours proposal to next month's meeting to better review the report and its implications.