The University of West Florida has gone through two summers now where the
four-day work week was offered as an option for employees.  While many
employees opted for the plan, there were problems.  (1) the ten hour day does
not extend forward....rather employees were expected to be on the job at 7 am
and work to 5:30 with 30 minutes for lunch;  (2) because of the nature of a
public university, public relations, and need to have people in offices to
handle administrative tasks, all offices still had to be open the regular
8-5 hours, even on the 5th day----offices worked this out by having ONE
person cover the 5th day on a rotating basis;  (3) although originally it was
thought that utility costs would be saved....full-time areas like the Library,
Computer Services, etc still needed constant on-going cooling....also the
number of daily requests for exceptions due to meetings, computer equipment
in labs, etc...ran very high and physical plant had difficulty constantly
resetting computer-controlled HVAC systems;  (4) the impact on users was diffi-
cult to assess, but more complaints than praise were received, about offices
being closed, or the person assigned to cover, knew nothing more than to answer
telephones.    One other aspect---our local library eliminated Monday hours to
save money and is closed on Sundays.  The impact on our university library
which IS open on Sundays and Mondays is enormous;  I get a constant steady
stream of genealogists on Mondays....they spend the weekend getting excited
about doing some family research, found the library closed and came to the
University.   Certainly they are welcome....but the point is that the closing
of one facility can impact others.
 
While I have labored to explain the problems....I'm trying to expound on the
considerations you need to cover.   Who are your clients?  Do they need 5
day access?  Will cutting cooling, etc. affect the collections?  Will cutting
your hours lose you "clients" to other institutions?   Since many weekends are
3-4 days covering Fri through Monday....would a different day be better to be
closed, such as Tuesdays?
 
Dean DeBolt, University of West Florida