Weekly hours represent the total number of hours Monday through Sunday. This is 26 hours for Quality Libraries Aid and 45 for Incentive for Excellence Aid. Weekend hours must meet the separate weekend requirement of 6 hours for Quality and 7 hours for Incentive.
For 10 weeks the library can reduce the hours on Saturday and Sunday (Weekend Hours) to a minimum of 4 hours for both Quality and Incentive.
For Quality Aid: The reduction of weekend hours cannot result in weekly hours dropping below the required weekly hours of 26. There is no exception for approval by the State Librarian as found in the Incentive for Excellence standard.
For Incentive Aid: If the reduction of weekend hours results in the library dropping below the minimum weekly hours of 45, the library must receive approval from the State Librarian for the reduction.
- Example: If an Incentive level library is open a minimum of 48 weekly hours (with seven of those hours falling on Saturday/Sunday), for ten10 weeks the library can reduce the hours on Saturday/Sunday to 4 and still be compliant with the standard since the total weekly (Monday - Sunday) hours are still meeting the 45 minimum standard.
- If a library is only meeting the minimum standards (45 hours Monday – Sunday with 7 of those hours falling on Saturday or Sunday), and they decide to reduce their Saturday/Sunday hours to 4 during the 10 weeks, then the library would only be open 42 hours for their weekly (Monday - Sunday) hours and no longer meet the 45 open hour requirement. This is where the approval of the State Librarian is required since the library is now not meeting the 45 weekly hour requirement.
- There is no option for the library to request a reduction of hours between Monday and Friday or to request to be closed more than 3 hours over the weekend for the 10-week period. The situation in which the library should request approval for closure by the State Librarian is if the reduction of weekend hours results in the library not being in compliance with the 45 minimum weekly (Monday – Sunday) hours.
