Opinion: Every Neighborhood Deserves a Library Open on Sundays

Only two of our city’s branch libraries open on Sundays — and both are downtown. If you live on the east side, the south side or in the neighborhoods out past the river, your library closes Saturday afternoon and stays dark until Monday morning. For the families who need it most, that means the library is closed on the one day they are actually free to use it.

For working families, Sunday afternoon is often the only time to visit together. It is time the budget matched the need. The city council will begin work on next year’s budget next month, and we urge members to fund Sunday hours at four more neighborhood branches.

The week does not leave much room

Think about a typical family on the south side. Both parents work, one on a weekday schedule and one on rotating shifts. The children are in school until mid-afternoon, then in after-school care or sports. Weeknights are a blur of dinner, homework and bedtime. Saturdays fill with errands, games, chores and part-time jobs.

Sunday is the only day with any slack in it. It is the day a parent might take a child to pick out a stack of picture books, help with a research project or simply sit together in a quiet room for an hour. Yet at most of our branches, that is exactly when the doors are locked.

The two downtown branches that do open on Sundays are busy. Staff there say Sunday afternoons are among their most crowded hours of the week, with families, students and seniors filling the tables. Many of those visitors travel across the city by bus or car because their own neighborhood branch is closed. That should tell the council something about demand.

A modest cost

Opening four more branches for five hours each Sunday would cost about as much as resurfacing one mile of road. That estimate, from the library system’s own budget request, covers staff wages, utilities and security for one year. In a city budget measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, it is a rounding error.

We are not suggesting that roads do not matter. They do. But the council regularly finds money for projects with far less public benefit than a library that serves thousands of residents every week. Sunday hours would reach children, teens, job seekers, new immigrants, seniors and anyone who works during the week. Few line items in the budget touch so many people for so little.

The library is the one place in town where nobody asks you to buy anything.

Guest essay by a retired schoolteacher (fictional)

That line, from a guest essay we published earlier this year, has stayed with us. Malls, coffee shops and movie theaters all charge admission in one way or another. The library asks only that you return what you borrow. On a cold or rainy Sunday, that makes it one of the few truly public places in the city.

More than books

Sunday hours mean homework help, free Wi-Fi and a warm, quiet place to spend the afternoon. For many residents, the library is not a luxury but a basic resource. It is where students without internet access at home finish assignments due Monday morning. It is where adults apply for jobs, file paperwork, print boarding passes and get help with forms. It is where older residents read the newspaper, attend a class or simply find company.

What Sunday hours would make possible

• Homework help and quiet study space before the school week begins
• Free computers and Wi-Fi for residents without internet at home
• Family story times and weekend programs for children
• Job search help and resume workshops for working adults
• A warm, safe place to spend a winter afternoon

Librarians also point to the people who come simply for company. Widowed seniors, new parents on leave and recent arrivals to the city often find weekends the loneliest days of the week. A Sunday book club, a knitting circle or a free film screening can give them a reason to leave the house and a chance to meet neighbors they might never otherwise encounter.

Teachers know the difference this makes. Ask any middle school teacher how many students arrive Monday without a finished project because they had no computer or printer at home over the weekend. A Sunday afternoon at a neighborhood branch can be the difference between a completed assignment and a missing grade.

Choosing the right branches

The library system has already identified four branches that would make good candidates for Sunday service: the east side branch near the community center, the south side branch next to the middle school, the branch in the river neighborhood and the west side branch near the bus transfer station. Each serves neighborhoods with large numbers of working families and students, and each is far from the two downtown locations.

We suggest the council fund a one-year pilot at these four branches, with hours from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The library should track visitors, computer use, program attendance and checkouts, and report the results to the council before the following budget cycle. If Sunday hours do not draw residents, the council can reconsider. We are confident they will.

Key takeaway: Four neighborhood branches open five hours each Sunday would cost roughly what the city spends to resurface a single mile of road, and would serve thousands of residents who cannot reach the library during the week.

Answering the skeptics

Some will say that people can use the library’s website on Sunday, or download e-books from home. Those services are valuable, and we are glad the library offers them. But they assume a device and a reliable internet connection, which many families in our city do not have. They also cannot replace a librarian who helps a teenager find a source for a research paper or a quiet table where a child can concentrate.

Others worry about staffing. Library workers deserve fair schedules, and Sunday shifts should be paid at a premium and offered first to staff who want them. Several branch librarians have told us privately that they would welcome the chance to serve families who rarely come in during the week.

Security is another concern we have heard, and it is a fair one. The library system’s budget request already includes funding for a weekend security presence at each branch, the same arrangement that works well at the two downtown locations today.

Still others will argue that the city has more urgent needs. There is always another priority. But a city’s budget is a statement of its values, and few investments say more about a community than keeping the doors of its libraries open when its residents are free to walk through them.

Open the doors

The council has an opportunity this budget season to make a small change with a large effect. Funding Sunday hours at four neighborhood branches would cost little, reach many and send a clear message that the library belongs to everyone, not just those who live downtown or work flexible hours.

We urge residents who agree to tell their council members, attend the budget hearings next month and, if they can, visit one of the downtown branches on a Sunday afternoon to see the crowds for themselves. Every neighborhood deserves a library that is open when families need it. Sunday is that day.