The McAfee Memorial Library, located in the academic underground, has temporarily changed its hours of operation. The change in hours has come after a small bout of staff turnover of part-time librarians.

“The impact library hours are that on Thursday evenings, instead of being open until 9:30 p.m. we are temporarily closing at 8 p.m.,” said Glenn Ferdman, director of library service. “Then our virtual reference service, the ‘Ask A Librarian Service,’ where you can chat live with a librarian. The impact to that is that we had to temporarily suspend our Saturday hours.”

There have only been the two changes to the normal library hours and the changes are only temporary. Students have been minimally affected by the temporary hour changes, Ferdman said.

“Nobody has mentioned increased calls,” says Betty Dusing, library assistant.

Dusing said the amount of calls and requests for assistance are dependent upon the cycle of classes, such as library staff might see an influx of students as finals week approaches.

Ferdman said the library staff was approved to start taking applications and screening for the part-time position.

He said there have been approximately 12 applicants since the posting of the position both internally and externally.

“With luck we will complete the initial round of screening end of this week,” said Ferdman.  “Start making some initial telephone calls and arrange to chat with folks on the phone as the first round of the process. Then we will probably narrow the pool down to two or three candidates that we will invite for on-site interviews the hopefully following week which will take us into mid-April. At that point if everything goes according to plan, we can be looking at making an offer at like the third week of April,” he said.

Ferdman said he is hopeful the new part-time librarian will be able to start the last week of classes to ensure all hours will be covered for the week of finals.

Since the Saturday “Ask A Librarian” service is unavailable students can still call the physical library and reach a librarian. They still provide the same information and assistance as with the virtual service.

If you need help on a Saturday or have any other questions you can call the library at 816-584-6285.

You may also reach them via email at [email protected] or the library website www.park.edu/library.