From Clive Benchley.

Birmingham Central Library is to end its decades-long tradition of evening opening by introducing a 6pm weekday closing time, possibly as early as December. The move will cut opening times by ten hours per week (the building currently opens between 9am-8pm Monday-Friday; 9am-5pm Saturdays) and will be a particular blow those whose work or study schedule prevents their visiting the library during the day.

Birmingham Central Library

In a further rolling back of services, the 6th floor archives study area is to close on Saturdays, adding to the Monday and Tuesday closures introduced a mere four months ago. The reduced times mean that a service which was available for 39 hours per week at the start of 2011 will finish it offering access for just 18 hours.

Birmingham Library Services argue that the cuts are necessary to prepare for the move, in 2013, to the £193m Library of Birmingham, currently under construction in Centenary Square. Yet staffing levels have been slashed in recent months with experienced and knowledgeable counter staff sacrificed in the run up to one of the most important periods in the history of the city’s library service.

While exact details of how the Library of Birmingham will look internally are still to be unveiled, concern exists that with most of the £193m design and construction costs coming via borrowing, the project’s final cost could reach upwards of £300m once interest payments, spread over many years, are taken into consideration.

Whether the substantially reduced levels of service experienced by users of the current building (many reception desks in the different departments have also been removed and shelving reduced throughout the building) are an indication of what can be expected in its replacement is yet to be seen. However, with local authorities facing severe funding shortfalls for some time to come, it may be that December’s service reductions will not be the last and that while the Library of Birmingham will doubtless open in a blaze of publicity its level of day-to-day service could be somewhat less glittering.