Seattle Public librarians' work week lengthened, library hours cut on August 10, 1932.

  • By David Wilma
  • Posted 1/01/2003
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 2088
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On August 10, 1932, Seattle Librarian Judson T. Jennings announces that the work week of library staff will be extended from 40 to 44 hours a week, library hours will be cut by two hours a day, and the staff will be cut to 40, all in response to an $85,000 cut in appropriations.

The main library would be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays. Branch libraries would close one day a week. The library's service to hospital patients was also cut and librarians' paid vacations were reduced from 26 working days to 15 calendar days per year.

Seattle along with the rest of the nation was in the grip of the Great Depression, and economic hard times made these measures necessary.


Sources:

"Seattle Public Library - 50th Anniversary, April 1941," scrapbook, (Douglass-Truth Branch, Seattle Public Library, branch history file); The Seattle Times, August 11, 1932, p. 3.


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