Free Library of Philadelphia nearing uniform 6-day service

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The Free Library system is close to reaching a long-held goal: six-day service for all of its branches.

Twenty-five of the Free Library’s 55 branches currently provide service six days a week. But the Free Library’s President and Director Kelly Richards is confident the system’s Monday through Saturday service will no longer be sporadic.

“By the fall, we believe we will have a full complement of branches open six days a week, which means all of them,” Richards said.

Five-day service was not always guaranteed for the Free Library system.

“We were closing 15 to 30 branches a day for 20 years,” Richards said. “Now we are in a position where we are looking to have all of our branches open on Saturdays.”

For much of the year, Saturday service is pivotal to give students access to technology and library resources when they are not in school. In the summer, the Free Library also provides a place to get a break from the heat on weekends.

In just 2 1/2 years since Richards began his role as president and director of the Free Library, he has seen the number of library employees jump from 650 to 980. Over that same period, the library’s operating budget has increased from $41 million to $72 million.

The Free Library system expanded Saturday service in 2023 to more branches thanks to dedicated funding that fiscal year, according to First Deputy Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia Priscilla Suero.

There is no official date for the commencement of complete six-day service as of right now. The only expectation is that it will begin this fall.

“We wish we could control the timing of it, we can’t, but we’re working.” Suero said. “That is all dependent upon the hiring side.”

With universal six-day service right on the doorstep, the Free Library system has already set their sights on potential seven-day service at Central Library, three regional Libraries, and up to five additional neighborhood libraries.

Richards is excited and optimistic about the future of the Free Library amid the recent budgetary and staffing improvements.

“The Free Library is rolling, we’re moving.” Richards said jovially.

What’s next for the Free Library

Richard’s reasons for optimism go beyond expanded service hours and growing metrics, such as program attendance and social media engagement — he has anecdotally seen more people engaged in library activities.

One factor driving attendees to the Free Library system is the success of recent renovations to the system’s largest branch, Parkway Central Library, according to Richards.

In April 2019, Parkway Central Library received three major renovations via private donations: the Business Resource and Innovation Center, the Marie and Joseph Field Teen Center and the Robert and Eileen Kennedy Heim Center for Cultural and Civic Engagement.

But before the additions could really get off the ground, the Covid-19 pandemic left potential library-goers housebound.

“So it never got the ability or trajectory to take off like we wanted to.” Richards said. “But now it’s picking up more than it ever has before. We have all kinds of services there, people are using it the way they should have used it.”

The Free Library welcomes the return of people using the newly renovated centers, and is also attempting to maintain climate-friendly habits, one of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s city-wide goals.

The newly implemented fiscal year 2025 budget agreed to by Parker and City Council directly allocates $1.1 million for the library’s greener vision, such as ensuring the Free Library can provide environmental health and sanitation services for all of its branches.

Sheila Simmons, chief of communications and strategy for the Office of Children and Families, reinforced the administration’s commitment to the Free Library in a statement last Thursday.

“The Parker administration strongly supports the Free Library system and is proud to have increased the system’s budget in its One Philly budget signed into law several weeks ago. The Free Library and all its branches are an essential part of a safer, cleaner, greener city, with access to economic opportunity for all.”