Baildon Hybrid Library announces new Opening Hours

Baildon Town Council and Bradford Libraries have announced new opening hours for Baildon Library after a consultation with the public.

In June 2017 the Library opened as a 'hybrid library', run jointly by volunteers from Baildon Town Council and paid staff from Bradford Libraries. After 6 months a consultation, both online and in the library, was held with users to determine the most popular times for opening.

Volunteers Coordinator, Rachel Gallagher said, "We felt it was important to ask our users when was the most convenient time for them to access the library".

The partnership also wanted to make sure that the library is open when people actually use it. To identify busy times and quiet periods, a visitor count was also carried out for a month to monitor usage.

There was considerable support for a change to re-opening on Wednesdays and for opening earlier in the day. Additionally, it was identified that evenings after 5pm and Saturday afternoons were underutilised and very quiet in the library.

How the opening hours will change

There will be no change to the number of hours that the library is open weekly. The library will still be open for 40 hours but will now be open every day (Monday to Saturday) from 9.30am.

There will still be a late night every week (Mondays) and we will also still open on Saturdays to suit the needs of people who work full-time. The library will now close at 2pm on Saturdays to reflect the time that local businesses close.

Councillor John Turner, Chair of the Baildon Library Advisory Group, said, "As the people of Baildon demonstrated their desire to keep our library open and their subsequent support since opening, we felt it only right to try and facilitate the openings they wanted, especially as so many have volunteered to help run it."

The new opening hours are:

Monday: 9.30am-7pm

Tuesday: 9.30am-5pm

Wednesday: 9.30am-1pm

Thursday: 9.30am-5pm

Friday: 9.30am-5pm

Saturday: 9.30am-2pm