Windsor residents want expanded library hours on Sundays

Only three branches of the Windsor Public Library (WPL) are open on Sundays and only from May to September. Regular library visitors are not pleased about the limited hours.

One of them did not know the library is closed on Sundays during the summer months.

"We just started using this library in the last couple of months, but that is rough," said Haley Randall, who was with her eight-month-old daughter Stella. "This is one of the farther libraries from our place and we drive out to this one because the ones around us are closed.

"So that's gonna suck in the summer for sure."

The three branches open on Sunday — during what the WPL calls the winter months — are Central, Budimir and Riverside. According to a WPL report, Sundays were the busiest days of the week in 2022. In the months the three branches were open on Sundays, an average of 21.2 people visited one of the libraries every hour, which is above the average of 14.72 across all nine branches on all days.

The hourly average number of items circulated and hourly average number of visitors who access the internet were also higher than average across all nine branches on all days.

Sue Perry, WPL's manager of public services, is not surprised.

"It's often difficult to get a table just because everybody wants to be here," said Perry,

Perry said a variety of people show up to the three open branches on Sundays.

"A lot of high school kids come to Budimir especially and get their group projects done on a Sunday," she said. "We have a lot of people who like to look over their stock market picks for the week. This is a great time for them to spread the newspapers across the table and just go to town on it. [They have] the Wi-Fi, so they can be checking their phones and their accounts compared to the newspapers."

One visitor said he's astonished by the limited hours the three branches are open on Sundays and wants branches to be open for at least six hours. He also wants to see the library he frequents open in the summer months.

"We're going out with our families, with our kids, and they want to read," said Yasser Senousy. "Most people work, so on our days off, we can't go to the library."

Lack of funding

According to Perry, who has been working for the WPL for 38 years, it has never been open during the summer months when kids are not in school due to a lack of demand. Perry doesn't blame residents who want to see all branches open for longer hours, but she said that a lack of funding has meant the WPL has had to close on Sundays during the summer.

"If we could be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at every single location every single day, that would be our ideal world," Perry said. "But we're bound by money, and the money just isn't there for that kind of thing."

Mark McKenzie, Ward 4 councillor and chair of the WPL board, said that he is sympathetic to the concerns of library-goers and that he brought up those concerns in budget committee meetings.

"We want to look at it," he said. "We're going to be having some conversations about maybe adjusting some hours and we're going to work with the union as well."

"I want to make sure that we are open on Sundays and that we're accessible to the public at their convenience."

Of the recommended issues in the City of Windsor's 2023 operating budget, only one issue which saw the library receiving money was listed: a $25,189 increase in fringe benefits associated with increased salaries.

Non-recommended items included funding of $56,020 to cover the increase of book prices due to inflation, a data plan for seniors who rent iPads from the WPL and a program to further fund the Poet Laureate and Storytellers Program.

McKenzie said that inflation and a tax increase meant that some funds were not recommended, but said that further funding might be approved in the future. He also mentioned that the library would access their reserve fund this year to cover the shortfall.

CBC News has reached out to the CEO of the WPL and the City's Operating Budget Review Committee requesting interviews.