Denver’s flagship library will extend its hours to seven days a week and address security concerns after its prolonged reopening, a library official told The Denver Gazette.

Denver Public Library’s Central Library, located south of downtown’s Civic Center Park on Broadway, is currently open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

It closed to the public in 2020 for an extensive refurbishing project after a stretch of limited hours, staffing shortages, building sustainability issues and illegal drug use on the property. Some of those issues remained upon the library’s grand reopening in November.

The upgraded library features new bathrooms, four free-to-use phones, new elevators, community rooms, studios, study spaces, an arts and craft room, an art gallery, the famous Legacy Room, upstairs views of downtown Denver, a banquet area and lounge areas.

Including books, e-books, music, movies and video games, the Central Library holds 256,973 items in the regular circulating collection, according to officials.

“It feels like you’re walking into a modern library,” Denver Public Library Executive Director Michelle Jeske said previously. “We believe that a strong library helps create a strong community.”

Following the four-year facelift, Central Library Director Rachel Fewell said the priority now is accommodating the needs of the community.

The Central Library director pointed to the use of public WiFi, phones, computers and study areas and lounge spaces to be the most utilized services since reopening.

“What we are doing is looking at our community and really trying to understand what their information needs are and their resource needs are,” Fewell said.

Expanded hours

Of the 27 Denver Public Library branch locations, 14 currently operate six days, three are open five days, six are open seven days a week and four are currently closed for renovations as of early February, according to the DPL website.

Other local metro Denver area library systems, such as in Douglas County, Aurora and Boulder, operate on a seven-day schedule. Some of those libraries are open 12 hours a day.

Fewell, without any specific timeframe, said the Central Library will extend its hours later this year following more building upgrades.

For the Central Library to sustain longer operating hours, it is about keeping staffing and building systems sustainable, according to the Central Library director.

“We plan to do seven days a week service. We’re also planning on opening one evening,” Fewell said, adding the current 38-hour per week schedule at the Central Library is meant to help prepare for full-time operations in the near future.

For instance, Fewell said the library utilizes Fridays and Saturdays as “buffer” days to address further building renovations and avoid future “unexpected closures.”

“We really are looking forward to getting back to seven day a week service,” Fewell said. “But right on the heels of our renovation, we really wanted to make sure we could sustain being open eight hours a day on the five days we were already open.

“We’ve added a ton of new systems to the building, such as new plumbing, new HVAC. We just want to make sure that all of those systems can hang with us with a fully opened building.”

Moving to full-time by the middle of the year is “staffing and systems dependent,” Fewell said, adding the challenge now is “staffing for security teams and keeping our custodial team fully staffed.”

Increased security measures

Increased security measures remain key to sustaining a full-time schedule, Fewell said.

That includes increasing measures for patron safety and enforcing the ban on illicit activities. Drug use in bathrooms continues to be a concern.

“We do see that there’s problematic behavior from anyone, from any walk of life that comes in our doors,” Fewell said. “We have a library use policy that we are always checking on people’s behaviors to make sure that they’re compliant.”

Enhanced security measures with library upgrades include hourly bathroom checks, library walkthroughs and policy compliance checks. A team of 12 social workers and navigators are assisting with enforcement, she said. 

Plans for construction and improvements to the Central Library had been in the works since 2017, when money from the Elevate Denver bond was unlocked for library projects — but slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bond, which so far has generated close to $1 billion, provides money for about 500 different projects throughout the city including $431 million for transportation projects, $117 million for cultural projects and a dedicated $69 million for libraries.

Denver contributed $38 million towards Central Library renovations, Fewell said.

“I think if we started to do more in our downtown that kept our downtown open and accessible to people, more like the library, I think that would really help turn things around,” Fewell said.

As a result of adding more hours and enhanced security, Fewell said: “We can all kind of move into that space of welcoming people and letting them know this is the place you can be.”