Beginning Jan. 9, the Carpinteria Branch of the Santa Barbara Public Library System will resume Monday hours of operation, from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Along with the addition of Monday hours, the Homework Center will be open Monday through Thursday.

The Carpinteria Branch is located at 5141 Carpinteria Ave. in Carpinteria and can be reached at 805.684.4314.

With the addition of Monday hours, the Carpinteria Library will be open Monday through Saturday. Hours of service had been reduced to five days a week since early 2010, when budget reductions resulted in the loss of Monday service. The additional service day was made possible by the Friends of the Carpinteria Library, who have pledged to support the increased hours from recent donations received as part of their “Save Our Library” campaign.

“When we started this campaign, we focused on raising enough money to keep the library open the same 38 hours it was open last year,” said Foster Markolf, the Friends president; “but we were also conscious of the fact that it had been closed for two years on Mondays, and we dreamed that the community might be generous enough to allow us to fund the reopening of our library on Mondays.”

“We are delighted to be able to open on Mondays again,” said Scott Love, the library services manager who oversees the operation of the branch libraries for the Santa Barbara Public Library System. “Before this campaign started, we were struggling with keeping the branch open five days a week. The addition of hours wouldn’t have been possible without the leadership of the Friends of the Library and the support from the community.”

With the return of Monday hours, the library’s Homework Center will switch from being open Tuesday through Friday to being open on Monday through Thursday. The Homework Center assists area students with homework by providing staff assistance and access to computers.

“Having the center open on Mondays will be great for the area youths, as Friday participation was always a light day since many kids didn’t have weekend assignments,” said Tara O’Reilly, the Carpinteria branch supervisor. From July 2010 to June 2011, the Homework Center assisted more than 2,900 kids.

Click here to view a complete online list of library locations and hours for the Santa Barbara Public Library System.

— Scott Love is the library services manager for the Santa Barbara Public Library System.