Why is the Saugerties Public Library closed on Sundays, we wondered – aren’t there a lot of people who’d like to visit the library over the weekend?
We asked the question of library director Sukrit Goswami, who said that they determined the hours that the library would stay open based on community surveys conducted earlier this year at the behest of the Library Board of Trustees.
“We are here to give the community what they ask for,” said Goswami, “and through these surveys they said that they’d like for us to extend the hours on more weeknights until 8 p.m. We had already been open until 8 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, but there was a lot of interest in us staying open on Tuesdays and Thursdays until that time as well, so we did.”
When the surveys were conducted, said Goswami, they made an effort to poll not only the regular library patrons but those who are not habitual library visitors. The option that came in second place in the surveys, he said, was to extend the Saturday hours, but opening on Sunday wasn’t something that there was really any interest in at all.
“So if this is something that there is no demand for,” said Goswami, “there was no point for us to open on Sundays, when it was the extended evening hours that people were interested in.”
The Saugerties Public Library is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The library is closed on Sundays and holidays. For more information, visit www.saugertiespubliclibrary.org or call 246-4317.
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