After nearly 10 months of operating with no weekend hours, the Cottage Grove library will open on Saturdays starting in September.
Head Librarian Natasha Chitow said the city had enacted a hiring freeze to help balance the budget. The library couldn’t fill an open position and had to make do with four staff members, two of whom are part-time. Saturday hours were cut because it was the day with the lowest traffic.
“It’s really, really difficult to stretch that many service hours, because we need a minimum of two people to be able to run the library at any given time," Chitow told KLCC. "So we are just returning back to the service level that we had before.”
Chitow said the city ended the freeze and she’s happy to be able to increase accessibility.
She said even with reduced staff, the summer reading program was successful. It included some new presenters and, for the first time, an escape room. Chitow said a wide range of patrons tried the locked-room puzzle challenge, and the library plans to offer something similar again.
However, she said, Cottage Grove still faces a $500,000 budget shortfall, and everyone is looking for ways to save money.
