County libraries adding extra hours, more days

Thanks to climbing property tax revenues, the Spokane County Library District plans to expand hours and open on Sundays at four of its libraries next week.

In 2006 the district also plans to complete the new Moran Prairie library and add wireless Internet at all 10 library branches.

“Sunday hours have been something that customers have always asked us for,” said district spokeswoman Beth Gillespie.

Starting Tuesday, branches in Spokane Valley, Cheney, Moran Prairie and north Spokane will open for four hours on Sundays.

The district expects Sunday to be one of the busiest days at the libraries, Gillespie said.

Those four branches also will open earlier on Fridays, restoring morning hours that were cut in the early 1990s.

“When they told us, we were just practically jumping up and down,” said Mayo Sayrs of Friends of the Library in Spokane Valley.

The Sunday hours will be particularly helpful for working parents, she said, and the changes on Friday’s schedule will make the opening time consistent with the rest of the week.

The Argonne and Moran Prairie libraries also will see a slight increase in hours in the middle of the week.

The new Moran Prairie library is scheduled to be completed Jan. 14. A special tax district approved by voters in 2003 raised $2.35 million in bonds for the library. It will be three times bigger than the current branch at Cedar Canyon Village shopping center.

The existing library will close from Monday to Jan. 9 as materials are moved to the new building.

Among the amenities in the new facility will be wireless Internet access, a feature the district hopes to add to all of its branches over the course of next year, Gillespie said.

The district’s 2006 budget anticipates a total of $8.2 million in expenditures. That is about $1.2 million more than last year – an increase Gillespie said has been driven by rising property values that add to the amount of tax money the district receives.

Other Spokane libraries also will open their doors more frequently in 2006.

With help from a voter-approved tax increase, the city’s 2006 budget will restore some of the hours reduced because of a $1 million budget cut from 2004 to 2005.

The Shadle and South Hill libraries will add hours from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays. Currently, both libraries are closed on those days.

The Hillyard, East Side and Indian Trail library schedules will change entirely. They will be open from 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, from 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Fridays and from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays.

The new hours will begin in February rather than the first of the year because the libraries have to hire and train new staff, said Eva Silverstone of Spokane Public Libraries.

In Liberty Lake, a new children’s library opened recently next door to the main facility. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays; from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.

Hours in the main library will stay the same next year, except for Saturdays when the library will open and close an hour later at 10 p.m. and 2 p.m.