The Stockbridge City Council voted 4-1 to allocate $10,080 to open the library for four hours each on 14 Saturdays during the remainder of 2016. Saturday operating hours at the Cochran Library will be 1-5 p.m. beginning Aug. 6 and all subsequent Saturdays this year with the exception of Sept. 3 (Labor Day weekend), Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving weekend), Dec. 24 and Dec. 31.
All five libraries in the county have been open eight hours a day, four days a week, since 2010 for budgetary reasons. The headquarters library in McDonough added Sunday afternoon hours a few years ago. Those Sundays are staffed in rotation by personnel from all five libraries, according to library system director Carolyn Fuller, and the same method will be used to staff the Cochran Library on Saturdays.
Fuller has lobbied county officials for years to expand library operating hours, saying her department is $1.1 million short of what is needed to open seven days a week.
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