Library to Open Mondays

The Churchill County Library will resume regular hours after several months of a skeleton schedule due to staffing shortages after Library Director C.L. Quillen was terminated in May. 

Beginning Monday, November 4, the library will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Board of Trustees voted last week to allow the library to be open 55 hours a week if needed. 

Newly hired Library Director Cathy Thorson said she has looked through the data and cannot find a justification for staying open an extra hour during the week or on Saturday. “For consistency and so the community knows that there will be regular hours that we’ll be open until the same times each night during the week we would propose closing at 6 p.m. during the week,” she said. 

Thorson conferred with board chair Jessica Rowe and former Library Director Carol Lloyd, who has been filling in through the interim, to see if there was a community justification for keeping the library open until 7 p.m. “There seems to be no community reasons to stay open.”  

She also said it would be good to reopen on Mondays. “I’ve been in the library now for two Mondays and I can’t tell you how many people come up to open the doors and we’re closed,” Thorson said. 

Trustee Sue Segura also asked Thorson to come prepared with a report for the board. “I want you to do an analysis of the number of people, the number of books checked out, and bring us some ideas of what you would like to change. I’m sure the trustees have things they want to change, but I want to see data,” Segura said. 

In other business, the board moved the November meeting to November 21, at 3 p.m., due to the Thanksgiving holiday.