Six Kansas City Public Library branches will open on Sundays starting in January, the first time the system has offered regular weekend hours beyond Saturday in more than a decade.
Which branches
- Central Library, 1–5 p.m.
- Plaza, 1–5 p.m.
- Waldo, 1–5 p.m.
- North-East, 1–5 p.m.
- Ruiz Biblioteca, 1–5 p.m.
- Trails West, 1–5 p.m.
The four-hour window is deliberately modest. Library administrators told the board that a longer Sunday would require overtime staffing that the one-time appropriation cannot sustain beyond 2028.
The evidence base
The system has run Sunday hours at Central on a pilot basis twice, in 2019 and again in 2025. Both pilots drew attendance roughly equal to a weekday, with a different composition: more families, more students, and a notably higher share of people using computers rather than borrowing books.
Sunday is not a quiet day here. It is the day people who work all week can finally come in.
A branch manager
The staffing problem underneath
The library has 34 vacant positions across the system, roughly 9 percent of its authorised headcount. Sunday hours will be covered by shifting existing staff schedules rather than new hires, which means some weekday evening hours will be reduced at the same branches.
The board approved the change 5–2, with the dissenting members citing exactly that trade-off.
Marisol Vega
Marisol has covered Kansas City government since 2016, with a focus on transit, land use and the city budget. She grew up in Argentine and lives in Northeast.
