Fairfield library expands business hours

Starting Monday, March 13th, the Fairfield Public Library will be open an additional six and a half hours each week. The Library’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved the change in hours at the Library Board’s February meeting.

Starting next week, the library will be open Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Library staff had noticed that community members were waiting to enter the building as early as 9:15 a.m. most mornings, indicating that the library should prioritize an earlier open time with the expansion.

Library Director Al Schmidt Mickunas observed, “Many of the library’s first visitors each day are MIU students looking for a quiet, comfortable place to work. They seem to like our study rooms and we want to make sure they can utilize them earlier each morning”.

The library has also implemented a new study room policy with the hopes of increasing access. Starting this week, study room users can have a room for up to three hours, after which they can extend their use an hour at a time if no one else is waiting. Prior to this, there was no time limit for use of the rooms. All too often, library staff have had to direct visitors wishing for study rooms to other quiet parts of the library when no rooms were available.

The most dramatic change in the expansion of hours will be on Saturday when the library shifts from being open 1-5 p.m. to the new time of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The library anticipates that with the change, they will be see more families using the library in the earlier part of the day.

Director Schmidt Mickunas said, “We know that many families like to get started early on Saturdays with errands. And when we looked at the hours of operation for other libraries in the region, we found that nine out of 10 libraries open at 10 a.m.”

The library expects to be able to further expand hours in July after a new self-checkout station is implemented and new funds are available to hire a 10-hour a week part-time staff member.