Kenilworth Library may close by 16 hours - how would you choose?

There are 77 days left before the Warwickshire Libraries consultation closes on 9 June 2011. A drop in Roadshow is being held at Kenilworth Library on Thursday 5 May 2011 between 3.30-6.30pm and a public meeting is planned on Monday 6 June 2011 at 7pm at Kenilworth School. Do not even ask me why this meeting is scheduled three days before the consultation ends?

Here are three timetables showing Kenilworth Library opening 51 hours (as it is now) and two ideas how it may look reducing it's hours by 16 (to open 35 hours a week). That's a 31% cut. The red squares are just my visualisation and NOT direct proposals that WCC are putting forward. 

The table shows the hours cut off the end of the week while second shows hours cut on a Wednesday and the evenings. In my view, people may not be aware what these proposals may look like. Kenilworth may have a population of 26,000 and of that 14,926 are registered with the library while 6,442 have borrowed within the last 12 months - that's 25% of the town population who are active library users.

My estimate, there are 10,000 Books, CDs and DVDs in Kenilworth Library. I arrived at that number by counting 30 books to a shelf x 8 shelves a case x 42 cases. Another way of getting to grips with what the consultation may be asking is to reduce the shelves by 31% and removing 3,100 books. Just some observations - please leave some comments of your own. As I said, Library Budgets are a national story. I made clear my own think in Kenilworth Library and some Blue Sky Thinking (4 Feb) So, what are you going to do for your library? Read other LIBRARY articles at wiK.

From Warwickshire Libraries Facing the Challenge Charts