DENMARK, S.C. – A temporary closure of the Denmark branch of the Aiken-Bamberg-Barnwell-Edgefield Regional Library System forced by the resignation of the manager will be rectified as the facility, located in the Walter Booker Center, will reopen on Friday, Oct. 24.

Mary Jo Dawson, director of the A-B-B-E Regional Library System, said the Denmark branch has been closed since Oct. 13 because the single employee who operated it resigned that same day.

“We sincerely regret having to close the Denmark branch but we simply couldn’t keep it open without anyone there,” Dawson said. “Even in the best of times, we are usually short-staffed, and we just didn’t have anyone to oversee that facility on the spur of the moment. Amy Reiff, the former manager, had been working in Denmark for a year and had done a great job, but she decided to leave for personal reasons.”

“It’s taken us this long to be able to cobble together a schedule of substitute people who can open the Denmark branch during its regular operating hours,” she said. “But as of Oct. 24, the Denmark branch will reopen on its standard schedule.”

Dawson said the A-B-B-E Regional Library System is now in the process of advertising for another branch manager and hopes to begin interviewing for the position in early November.

“I also want our Denmark library patrons that have been dropping off their borrowed materials at the book-drop to know that those will be backdated so no one will incur any fines due to the temporary closure,” Dawson added.

Dawson also said the closure came at a time when overall library usage is on the rise.

“There has been about a 10 percent increase across the region in people using our services,” she said. “That traditionally occurs in slow economic times as people begin looking for free- or reduced-price services.”

The normal operating hours of the A-B-B-E Regional Library System’s Denmark branch are: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-6 p.m. on Mondays; 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Wednesdays; and 10 a.m.- 1 p.m. and 2-6 p.m. on Fridays. The branch is closed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

T&D Staff Writer Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at psarata@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5540.

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