CH library escapes cut in weekend hours

By JAMES STURDIVANT

Saturday hours will resume at the Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library Oct. 2 despite staff shortages that have forced many branch libraries to postpone the weekend service that normally follows the start of the school year.

Only 10 branch libraries around the city will be able to reopen on Saturdays next month when the library system changes over from its summer schedule, said Sandra Horrocks, vice president of communication and development at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Regional libraries and the Central Library on Vine Street in Center City are not affected, she said.

Opening as usual will be Chestnut Hill, Lovett Memorial in Mount Airy and Andorra on East Cathedral Road in Roxborough, along with Bustleton, Drexel, Overbrook, South Philadelphia, West Oak Lane, Welsh Road and Walnut West. Branches that will remain closed on the weekend include Wadsworth, Ogonz, Roxborough on Ridge Avenue and Falls of Schulylkill. No weekday hours at any of the city’s branch libraries will be cut.

“The city’s having some budget issues … We are waiting for more staff. There’s a request in, and we’re trying to get more staff on board,” Horrocks said.

Lovett Memorial, located at 6945 Germantown Ave., is already open Saturdays due to the closing of Germantown’s Joseph E. Coleman Regional Library for the installation of new heating and air conditioning units. It will begin offering Sunday hours beginning Oct. 3 and continuing until Coleman reopens at the end of November.

Sorting through donated books at the Chestnut Hill branch Monday afternoon, Renee Polsky of the Friends of the Chestnut Hill Library seemed relieved that the branch would not be affected but stressed that Saturday hours are important everywhere.

“If you are a working person, especially if you have a family, you just don’t get to the library during the week. It’s a safe place for a child to be on the weekend if they don’t have something else to do,” she said.

Library patron Gary Miller agreed.

“It’s one of the only times we can go as a family. We’re there pretty frequently on the weekend. It’s one of the resources in the city we think works pretty well,” he said.

Horrocks seemed confident that the cutbacks would be only temporary.

“We expect that they will fill these positions. Sometimes it doesn’t happen as quickly as we would like,” she said.