Staffing issues see Nobber Library hours cut back

Opening hours at Nobber Library have been severely curtailed due to staffing issues with the local community now only able to access their library one day per week.

Since the 31st May, the library has only opened on Thursdays from 9.30am-5pm with the branch closed for lunch between 1pm and 2pm.

Prior to then, it also opened on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and on Saturday mornings and was a busy hub in the community as children and people of all ages visited to use the facility, which underwent an extensive refurbishment project in 2020.

National Public Library Open Day took place on Saturday with local branches throughout the county hosting information events to inform library users of the services available yet Nobber Library remained closed and locals are becoming increasingly frustrated by having such limited access, especially working parents.

Anne-Marie McKenna, principal of the local, Scoil Eoin Báiste primary school said the limited access means access to books is also limited.

She said: "The importance of library access can never be highlighted enough. We are trying to raise our children to be avid readers, but a cost of living crisis means that access to books can be easier for some than others. Having a library in the village means that everyone has access to books. However when the library hours are so limited, access to books is also limited.

"We ask all the children in the school to get their membership, to get to the library, but the library is then only open one day per week. Saturday used to be the busy day with children heading down after football to return and borrow, but Saturdays are now a thing of the past.

"We are lucky that it is open on a Thursday so that the children in our school can access it, but really it needs to be open so families can go in and borrow. We talk about getting our children reading, reading for pleasure, and the importance of fostering a love of books, well maybe have the libraries a little more accessible to facilitate all of this talk."

The retirement of the librarian who covered the Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday morning slots has left a gap but four months on locals feel more could be done to expedite the recruitment process and have questioned why another staff member can't be drafted in from another location to provide cover so that locals can have improved access while the staffing issue is resolved.

When contacted a spokesperson for Meath County Council said: "Due to staff shortages, the Nobber library is currently open only on Thursdays. The matter is with our HR department."