Starting this semester the College Library hours have been cut back from 89 to 73 hours due to budget cuts announced last spring.

“Library staff has been reduced from 100-percent time to 80-percent time,” said Joe Farara the faculty librarian of the Willey Library and Learning Center. “We had to reduce hours accordingly.”

The staff had the choice of reducing everyone’s time or lose a position because of those cuts.

“Given that choice I chose to reduce everyone’s time” Farara said

The WLLC used motion studies to track how many students were in the library during different times of the week, which Farara said enabled the staff to make staffing decisions that would have the least impact.

“We looked at what our least trafficked areas were,” said Farara. Since the traffic levels were low in the morning and late at night, he decided to cut down those hours.

A majority of the students were not using the library during the hours that were cut. Based on the motion studies, Farara said only a small group of people will be affected.

“We tried to focus everything to where we had the greatest critical mass of patrons,” said Farara.
The WLLC serves students, faculty, staff, and the wider community, and Farara emphasized that his staff wants to provide as much service as possible given the current limitations.

“We would like to be open as much as possible, but you just have to be realistic,” he said.

Compared to the other Vermont State Colleges, Johnson State’s library has the smallest staff with 5.8, whereas Castleton State College has 10 staff members, which gives them the ability to stay open 89.5 hours a week.

The library still offers the 24-hour lab along with resources online, and hours will be extended come exam week, according to Farara.