Your library’s current hours will continue through 2027

Update (September 22): Your library’s current hours will continue through 2027.  

Over the past several weeks, Hennepin County received feedback about funding priorities from more than 2,500 library users. Based on this feedback and other strategies, adjustments have been made and the proposed County budget for 2027 retains our current library hours.  
 
The County Board will vote on the final budget in December. Learn more about county budgets at hennepincounty.gov/budgets.

Original news item:

Hennepin County Library is preparing changes to public operating hours beginning in January 2027. The changes are part of the Library’s requested budget and are not yet final.

A tentative schedule is available below. Hennepin County Administration and the Board of Commissioners will review the proposal through the county’s annual budget process.

Under the proposal, no library locations will close. Open hours would decrease by approximately 7% across the library system, about 140 hours per week. Most libraries would move to more consistent eight-hour service days, and some locations would gain Sunday hours.

Why hours are changing

The cost of providing Hennepin County’s public services continues to grow. Countywide cost pressures include increasing personnel costs, rising employee health insurance costs, technology and facilities expenses, inflation in supplies and services, and uncertainty surrounding federal funding.

County departments were directed to submit 2027 budgets within a target of 102% of their current budgets. For the Library, that means finding approximately $5 million in efficiencies to absorb the increasing expenses for our current services.

Budget pressures have been building over the past several years. We have managed those constraints with minimal impact on patrons through a combination of generous support from Friends of the Hennepin County Library and targeted reductions in other areas.

Since 2025, our collections budget has shrunk by approximately $1.5 million. Hiring has slowed across job classes, and spending on public computers, employee training, and other operating expenses has also been reduced.

Meeting the budget target will require the Library to hold open a significant number of vacant positions. At the same time, Southdale and Westonka libraries are expected to reopen in 2027 and will need to be staffed. With fewer staff available across the system, the Library cannot maintain all current hours while safely and reliably operating every location.

How the proposal was developed

The tentative 2027 schedules were developed using several data points, including available staffing, service patterns, community access, geographic distribution, and patron usage.

The changes are not a response to declining library use. The library has more than 600,000 active cardholders—the highest number in a decade. An average of approximately 14,000 people visit our libraries each day. First-time checkouts have increased each year since 2020 and now exceed pre-pandemic circulation with 12.8 million first-time checkouts in 2025. Read our 2025 annual report for more detail.

Commitment to residents

Libraries provide important access to information, technology, education, employment resources, community connections and welcoming public spaces. In developing the proposed schedules, we are working to preserve access across the county, avoid closing locations and use available staff as effectively as possible.

Share your feedback

You can provide feedback to your commissioner using an online form.

What happens next

The Board of Commissioners will review budgets for all departments, hear public feedback, and adopt the final 2027 budget later this year. Learn more about Hennepin County budget process.

This page will be updated when tentative schedules, feedback opportunities or budget decisions change.

Update (September 22): An earlier, tentative schedule of 2027 hours has been removed from this section. Search engines and AI tools crawl our pages for information, and we want to avoid any incorrect or outdated hours information in your search results. Our current hours will continue in 2027.