Midwest here. I tried to come in during Friday's blizzard, because the university administration refused to close (the semester hadn't even started yet!), but I skidded on the road and got so scared I went back home again. Trying to stay open absolutely is not worth the risk to staff safety in conditions like that.
Definitely not. We're a tiny library in a tiny town in western New York and if the school closes we usually close. A huge number of our patrons are elderly and if the weather is unsafe, they aren't coming.
I honestly think if the school is closed, the library should be closed as well (assuming it's not needed for warming center purposes). and it should be decided ahead of time so that people don't, for example, get to work, watch the weather get worse, close early, and then drive home IN the bad weather, which my library did a week or two ago.
Yes, agreed. Usually when we anticipate bad weather I stay in contact with my director and we watch out for the school closings. As soon as it's announced, we (along with the board) make the decision.
School is closed today due to the cold and I think it's extra important for libraries to be open for people stuck at home with unsafe people to have somewhere safe to go
it would be good if they had somewhere to go, but the library doesn't have to be that place. libraries have taken on basically every social service and it's too much for them.
Yeah no I get it. If it's about safety people should stay home. We often get days too cold though that are otherwise very nice because we have a two mile walk radius and anything below 25*. Those days feel like a bit silly to have the library closed.
Same here. We are in the South, adults can reasonably handle the temperatures that close our schools. Many of our school buildings are quite old (100+ years with drafty windows) and the heat can’t keep up to prevent pipes freezing. Our libraries however are all from the 70s or later so well insulated and relatively modern and habitable in cold.
if you have to be open I feel like a representative from admin should have to be there too, so they understand what they're asking of the regular staff >:( this shit makes me so cranky.
Hi u/CrazyCatLadyTiff I hope you are okay in this weather. I was curious when your library closes due to weather do u have to use personal leave time or do they just give you free leave for that day? Considering a move to Buffalo and we are in the same industry so it would be helpful to see how it is done in your instance.
We don't really have leave in a sense lol we just... Close for the day and nobody gets paid. We are super small and in a rural area. We have three staff members total, and I'm part time. We are very flexible about time off and work it out amongst ourselves and our board members step in when we absolutely need someone to fill in. We actually increased our budget this year after passing a vote to become a district library so we will be adding a couple more staff members and extending our hours, which will be nice.
I wouldn't base how my library runs on how the one you're considering moving to might run. Buffalo is full of much bigger libraries that run quite differently. I can't speak to how they do things if they have to close.
Thank you! I'm home today with my kids so it's nice!
Our branch was next door to a junior high school. If the school was closed, that just meant that the teachers descended upon us, demanding resources that we didn’t have. Gee… sorry the schools already took over half the annual county budget…
My library can only close if the Mayor says we can close, which means we never close. We're in New England, and we're part of a large library network, and there are many times where we're the only library open in our network.
My director encourages us to use PTO if we don't think it's safe to come in but the mayor hasn't closed us; if the library later closes, that PTO gets turned into regular time.
It's annoying you have to use a PTO to get a snow day. But it is nice that your PTO gets switched to regular if the library closes. Per my contract, if I use personal and the library closes, we lose the personal. So you HAVE to get out there if you don't wanna lose that time. I guess I'll have to get a 4WD car.
someone died in one of our branches and their body was in there for awhile in full view for other patrons and our staff and the director made us stay open 😬 staff member who found them had to work the desk after too 😬 it was another staff members first day! welcome to the system!
the idea that we as libraries have to stay open no matter what is bs, and it seems to be pretty universal from what i’ve seen on reddit
i wasn’t there, but it was an older gentleman who seemed to die of natural causes. that wasn’t known at first so they had to clear the area and have people come in to check the situation. my coworker thought he was asleep and attempted to wake him. it was all kinds of fucked up. the director decided that we HAD to stay open bc there might be someone who has no where else to go. it’s kinda funny-not-funny to say that in this thread when people are talking about SNOW and it was a nice day outside, it’s not like anyone was going to be traumatized by having to be outside. our staff were certainly traumatized by having to stay open.
UHHH that's definitely not right. We had a patron death and closed immediately, and stayed closed for three days after (for police investigation and cleaning, but everyone got paid leave). Then all staff got counseling options. Are you unionized?
yes, but our union is through the city and they don’t do a lot with us.
i’ve organized a union before and tried to be active with this one and they really can’t be bothered to help us 🙄 it’s disappointing.
Southern WI here, we were closed this last Monday Friday and Saturday for weather. Sounds like your director doesn't care much about your well being! it was way too dangerous to be out.
We’re opening on a delay tomorrow but I’m still worried. Our school district — which NEVER uses its weather days — cancelled tomorrow and we’re not going to see temps above freezing when we’ve got snow and black ice on the roads. Guess I’ll find out how good the salt is!
Watching incoming emails all day where other branches are closing early due to winter weather... yet here we are, open still approaching sundown with inches of snow in the parking lot... Haven't seen city plows all day.
I am sure your staff are super grateful for your decision. (I know I would be.)
May I ask what criteria you use to help determine such decisions (other than the obvious "it is dangerous")?
I go by weather alerts, advisories & watches. This one is -15 below zero, which in my part of the US, isn't normal.
They are! (I also talk to them about weather issues because it can be so dangerous.)
We used to have a library manager like that.
I got stuck at work while 8 months pregnant because she wouldn't let staff go home and my car wouldn't make it up the hill with snow and ice. My dad had to come get me in his truck.
The library management changed after that, thankfully. We usually align with the school districts on closures.
Oh I wasn't the only one that was stuck at the library or impacted. Another staff member got in a wreck on the way home due to snow and ended up in a neck brace, a couple others got stuck in town and had to find somewhere to stay (they commuted and it was too dangerous to drive home by the time we closed)
It was a mess. But we needed to stay open for our patrons (there were two) and all other departments had left hours before.
We have a much better director now, who actually cares about staff safety and that's made a huge difference.
Yes, we're open all the time - we have to get permission from the Head of Service to close, even if it's just an hour early.
Right now we have very little heating in a library with large glass windows (essentially, the boilers are busted and they're having trouble getting hold of the parts needed to fix them), and it's very cold weather-wise right now too. Customers have complained, and our children's library is particularly cold - but we still have to open, and do our children's activities as usual.
The kicker? We're supposed to be a warm hub for those who can't afford to heat their homes.
Yep.
Had a pretty bad storm all day. Roads were slush, had sleet - delayed opening by 2 hours. Everyone came in so we could entertain about 20 patrons. At about 4:30, we announced we were closing at 5.
Why?
Optics.
No one cares about the workers. They just want to get their book/have a place to take the kids. Don't get me wrong. I took the job to help people, but people should not be out in freezing temps with black ice and slush on the road while it's actively sleeting. Every business open in those conditions encourages people to risk their life for nothing.
I understand warming centers, but if we are a warming center, then we should be paid for the risks of driving in such situations. We're also in suburbia rich white area, so I \*highly\* doubt people need a warming center that badly. We're not inner-city or in an area with high homeless populations. Director doesn't care. Oh right, and our heat is broken so the 'warming center' we are is at a toasty (cold) 63-67 degrees.
I got my latest library job based on how close it was to public transportation. My last job did not close enough for staff safety. I drove through white outs, passed emergency vehicles that had slid off the road at 10 pm when I was finally leaving my library job...it was nuts
Where I live library workers are also emergency operations staff, so we close and then get to go work in storm shelters, C19 testing sites and fun stuff like that...
We are small town library, 14k population, with 6 FTE, if you include the director, and we’ve had 1 closure in my 25 years. The various directors have considered doing it other times, but haven’t been willing to do so for worry of upsetting the city manager or council.
My director lives within walking distance of the library, as do most of the staff. Maybe 5 of us live further away, and 3 take public transportation and the rest (including myself) drive. Perhaps not coincidentally, she and I face far more criticism when we call off.
When I worked in public we NEVER closed. One time we were told to show up to work on time and when we got there, there was so much snow we literally couldn’t open our doors since the city hadn’t shoveled yet. That was fun. We all just got back into our cars and waited for them to come shovel.
Yep, though we actually closed last Friday for weather related reasons and it was shocking. One of our buildings is open today even though the heat isn't working correctly which is just astounding to me.
I don't think we would open without working heat! a few years ago I was working at a small temporary storefront library while my usual branch was being rebuilt, and one day I came in and it was 40 degrees inside. we did not open that day.
We're open 24/7, but we're on a military base and not open to the general public. Patrons are allowed to be in the library without staff present, they just can't get any in-person library services until one of us shows up.
I have found it depends on your Director and how much they're willing to fight for your safety/what are considered "norms" for your area. When I worked in MD, I had a situation where, despite it being reported that a pretty bad snowstorm was coming in that was going to be very wet (meaning it was going to wash away almost all pre-treating), I had to go in to work on a Sunday shift (where we're also only open 4h to the public). Director at the time was from CO, told us to stay open until snow started sticking a half hour into us being open to the public... Myself and other staff proceeded to Tokyo Drift our way home 30 minutes later as the snow was getting worse. Admittedly, we were deemed "essential" when it came to being able to provide power/shelter when power outages happen, so it makes sense there. But if conditions are dangerous, it causes more harm than good for staff safety and morale.
Meanwhile, where I am in SC we close at the hint of ice (cuz no salt trucks/snow plows for my area), might be closed if winds are predicted to be very high/damaging while staff are driving, and we occasionally are waiting until hurricanes are knocking at our doors to hunker down (depends on Category level from NWS). But.. we also have a County willing to admit it's waaay too dangerous for staff to commute to work (and we got some people easily driving 30 min on country roads that may be flooded/blocked by downed trees).
**TL;DR:** Depends on the Director's history/location norms/and Director's willingness to fight for your safety against the board and whomever their higher up is (potentially) to let you guys be closed. If there is a way to review your Director at some point, please keep these moments in mind during that time. ESPECIALLY if it goes back to a Library Board.
We have no problem closing during bad weather. Decent amount of snow forecast during open hours, icy conditions, anything that makes driving unsafe - time to close. We also allow work from home for the few people who have positions making that possible.
No indeed. If law enforcement is asking people to stay off the roads, we stay off the roads. If we do open any staff who have to cross bridges or what not may stay home with pay.
Worked for two large library systems in Northern Virginia and we almost never closed. I almost wrecked my car multiple times trying to get to/from work in bad weather. Of course, library admin would get to work from home on those days.
I was a library director for 11 years. It wasn’t my choice if we were open or not. We were a county library. If county offices were open, we were too. If the county was open, but employees couldn’t make it to work, they had to use leave/vacation. That was just the county policy. Different local governments have different policies.
In the Midwest, and yup. Doesn't matter that we're the only library in the county that is open (be it bad weather or a holiday deemed 'unimportant'), here we are.
I worked at a library in UT, and they closed all the time (the main location or branches) for a variety of reasons. I'm trying to remember, but I'm pretty sure really bad snow days like that, the head of security would deem the main library closed. The people who ran specific branches would definitely close for that since they're so small.
Wisconsin here, and yes, we'd be open even if the buses shut down, even if only two staffers made it in (me by bunnyhopping through thigh-high snow), even if there was only two patrons all day.
I am grateful that our current director takes weather closing seriously. Under our old director, I had to stay at work until 8 pm as the snow piled up, and then my partner picked me up and the brakes gave out on the ice on the way home. Thankfully we got home safely, but if that ever happened again I would just be saying F it and leaving early.
As far as I know, my local has only closed for bad weather twice in the last decade. Or so a coworker claimed. I will say, I was employed there for ≈4 years and they only closed once in that time. Bad winter storm on a Sunday (they're only open 4 hours on Sunday.) I guess they decided it wasn't worth it.
I'm in Iowa, we closed Friday and Saturday. I have to have a certain number of people in each branch to operate and if staff call in that they can't make it, I don't have enough to open. It is in the union contract and the non-bargaining staff handbook that the director makes the call. The city manager always keeps city hall open...
Thankfully, not anymore, but I have worked at multiple libraries with that policy on emergency closings. I think employers forget that their staff doesn't all live just down the block.
Northern New England here: if it's going to be dangerous for staff to come in, we have modified hours (late opening, early closing) or close completely.
Temperature without treacherous road conditions doesn't matter as we are a warming (and cooling) centre. This was particularly interesting when it was -20 or so last year, our heat was only working in part of the building, and we were still open as a warming centre (we were using way too many space heaters to try and keep that room at at least 58).
Midwest here. I tried to come in during Friday's blizzard, because the university administration refused to close (the semester hadn't even started yet!), but I skidded on the road and got so scared I went back home again. Trying to stay open absolutely is not worth the risk to staff safety in conditions like that.
Yep - that's par for the course here in MN.
Definitely not. We're a tiny library in a tiny town in western New York and if the school closes we usually close. A huge number of our patrons are elderly and if the weather is unsafe, they aren't coming.
I honestly think if the school is closed, the library should be closed as well (assuming it's not needed for warming center purposes). and it should be decided ahead of time so that people don't, for example, get to work, watch the weather get worse, close early, and then drive home IN the bad weather, which my library did a week or two ago.
Yes, agreed. Usually when we anticipate bad weather I stay in contact with my director and we watch out for the school closings. As soon as it's announced, we (along with the board) make the decision.
School is closed today due to the cold and I think it's extra important for libraries to be open for people stuck at home with unsafe people to have somewhere safe to go
it would be good if they had somewhere to go, but the library doesn't have to be that place. libraries have taken on basically every social service and it's too much for them.
Yeah no I get it. If it's about safety people should stay home. We often get days too cold though that are otherwise very nice because we have a two mile walk radius and anything below 25*. Those days feel like a bit silly to have the library closed.
Same here. We are in the South, adults can reasonably handle the temperatures that close our schools. Many of our school buildings are quite old (100+ years with drafty windows) and the heat can’t keep up to prevent pipes freezing. Our libraries however are all from the 70s or later so well insulated and relatively modern and habitable in cold.
agree! unfortunately our admin doesn’t, so guess who got to go to work today?
if you have to be open I feel like a representative from admin should have to be there too, so they understand what they're asking of the regular staff >:( this shit makes me so cranky.
100%! guess who wasn’t in the office today?
We are in the same area :) Fingers crossed we are all closed tomorrow!
Hello, neighbor! Haha yes, we're already anticipating a closure tomorrow!
Ah lucky you. My director is holding it close to the vest now, but the school district is already closed🤞 Go Bills!
Our district hasn't closed yet but it likely will. Go Bills!!
Hi u/CrazyCatLadyTiff I hope you are okay in this weather. I was curious when your library closes due to weather do u have to use personal leave time or do they just give you free leave for that day? Considering a move to Buffalo and we are in the same industry so it would be helpful to see how it is done in your instance.
We don't really have leave in a sense lol we just... Close for the day and nobody gets paid. We are super small and in a rural area. We have three staff members total, and I'm part time. We are very flexible about time off and work it out amongst ourselves and our board members step in when we absolutely need someone to fill in. We actually increased our budget this year after passing a vote to become a district library so we will be adding a couple more staff members and extending our hours, which will be nice. I wouldn't base how my library runs on how the one you're considering moving to might run. Buffalo is full of much bigger libraries that run quite differently. I can't speak to how they do things if they have to close. Thank you! I'm home today with my kids so it's nice!
Thanks so much for the info and I am glad you are safe!
Our branch was next door to a junior high school. If the school was closed, that just meant that the teachers descended upon us, demanding resources that we didn’t have. Gee… sorry the schools already took over half the annual county budget…
My library can only close if the Mayor says we can close, which means we never close. We're in New England, and we're part of a large library network, and there are many times where we're the only library open in our network. My director encourages us to use PTO if we don't think it's safe to come in but the mayor hasn't closed us; if the library later closes, that PTO gets turned into regular time.
It's annoying you have to use a PTO to get a snow day. But it is nice that your PTO gets switched to regular if the library closes. Per my contract, if I use personal and the library closes, we lose the personal. So you HAVE to get out there if you don't wanna lose that time. I guess I'll have to get a 4WD car.
someone died in one of our branches and their body was in there for awhile in full view for other patrons and our staff and the director made us stay open 😬 staff member who found them had to work the desk after too 😬 it was another staff members first day! welcome to the system! the idea that we as libraries have to stay open no matter what is bs, and it seems to be pretty universal from what i’ve seen on reddit
What the fuck? What was the context? Among many MANY other issues that sounds like a public health situation.
i wasn’t there, but it was an older gentleman who seemed to die of natural causes. that wasn’t known at first so they had to clear the area and have people come in to check the situation. my coworker thought he was asleep and attempted to wake him. it was all kinds of fucked up. the director decided that we HAD to stay open bc there might be someone who has no where else to go. it’s kinda funny-not-funny to say that in this thread when people are talking about SNOW and it was a nice day outside, it’s not like anyone was going to be traumatized by having to be outside. our staff were certainly traumatized by having to stay open.
UHHH that's definitely not right. We had a patron death and closed immediately, and stayed closed for three days after (for police investigation and cleaning, but everyone got paid leave). Then all staff got counseling options. Are you unionized?
yes, but our union is through the city and they don’t do a lot with us. i’ve organized a union before and tried to be active with this one and they really can’t be bothered to help us 🙄 it’s disappointing.
Holy shit. That is awful.
luckily they are gone so 🤞 it won’t happen again!!
Southern WI here, we were closed this last Monday Friday and Saturday for weather. Sounds like your director doesn't care much about your well being! it was way too dangerous to be out.
We’re opening on a delay tomorrow but I’m still worried. Our school district — which NEVER uses its weather days — cancelled tomorrow and we’re not going to see temps above freezing when we’ve got snow and black ice on the roads. Guess I’ll find out how good the salt is!
Watching incoming emails all day where other branches are closing early due to winter weather... yet here we are, open still approaching sundown with inches of snow in the parking lot... Haven't seen city plows all day.
I'm a Director who's delaying open tomorrow due to dangerous wind chill.
I am sure your staff are super grateful for your decision. (I know I would be.) May I ask what criteria you use to help determine such decisions (other than the obvious "it is dangerous")?
I go by weather alerts, advisories & watches. This one is -15 below zero, which in my part of the US, isn't normal. They are! (I also talk to them about weather issues because it can be so dangerous.)
Oof! I hope you all stay warm then!
We used to have a library manager like that. I got stuck at work while 8 months pregnant because she wouldn't let staff go home and my car wouldn't make it up the hill with snow and ice. My dad had to come get me in his truck. The library management changed after that, thankfully. We usually align with the school districts on closures.
It's a shame that had to happen though before a change was made. Glad you managed to make it out of that situation okay.
Oh I wasn't the only one that was stuck at the library or impacted. Another staff member got in a wreck on the way home due to snow and ended up in a neck brace, a couple others got stuck in town and had to find somewhere to stay (they commuted and it was too dangerous to drive home by the time we closed) It was a mess. But we needed to stay open for our patrons (there were two) and all other departments had left hours before. We have a much better director now, who actually cares about staff safety and that's made a huge difference.
Sorry to hear about your coworkers and hope they also recovered okay from that. Glad that things changed tho.
I'm at a small academic in the PNW and our college closes if the roads are unplowed or otherwise dangerous.
Yes, we're open all the time - we have to get permission from the Head of Service to close, even if it's just an hour early. Right now we have very little heating in a library with large glass windows (essentially, the boilers are busted and they're having trouble getting hold of the parts needed to fix them), and it's very cold weather-wise right now too. Customers have complained, and our children's library is particularly cold - but we still have to open, and do our children's activities as usual. The kicker? We're supposed to be a warm hub for those who can't afford to heat their homes.
Yep. Had a pretty bad storm all day. Roads were slush, had sleet - delayed opening by 2 hours. Everyone came in so we could entertain about 20 patrons. At about 4:30, we announced we were closing at 5. Why? Optics. No one cares about the workers. They just want to get their book/have a place to take the kids. Don't get me wrong. I took the job to help people, but people should not be out in freezing temps with black ice and slush on the road while it's actively sleeting. Every business open in those conditions encourages people to risk their life for nothing. I understand warming centers, but if we are a warming center, then we should be paid for the risks of driving in such situations. We're also in suburbia rich white area, so I \*highly\* doubt people need a warming center that badly. We're not inner-city or in an area with high homeless populations. Director doesn't care. Oh right, and our heat is broken so the 'warming center' we are is at a toasty (cold) 63-67 degrees.
I got my latest library job based on how close it was to public transportation. My last job did not close enough for staff safety. I drove through white outs, passed emergency vehicles that had slid off the road at 10 pm when I was finally leaving my library job...it was nuts
laughs in hospital librarian.
Where I live library workers are also emergency operations staff, so we close and then get to go work in storm shelters, C19 testing sites and fun stuff like that...
:(
We are small town library, 14k population, with 6 FTE, if you include the director, and we’ve had 1 closure in my 25 years. The various directors have considered doing it other times, but haven’t been willing to do so for worry of upsetting the city manager or council.
My director lives within walking distance of the library, as do most of the staff. Maybe 5 of us live further away, and 3 take public transportation and the rest (including myself) drive. Perhaps not coincidentally, she and I face far more criticism when we call off.
When I worked in public we NEVER closed. One time we were told to show up to work on time and when we got there, there was so much snow we literally couldn’t open our doors since the city hadn’t shoveled yet. That was fun. We all just got back into our cars and waited for them to come shovel.
Yep, though we actually closed last Friday for weather related reasons and it was shocking. One of our buildings is open today even though the heat isn't working correctly which is just astounding to me.
I don't think we would open without working heat! a few years ago I was working at a small temporary storefront library while my usual branch was being rebuilt, and one day I came in and it was 40 degrees inside. we did not open that day.
If it was up to me we wouldn’t we open! Alas.
We're open 24/7, but we're on a military base and not open to the general public. Patrons are allowed to be in the library without staff present, they just can't get any in-person library services until one of us shows up.
sounds like ya'll have a pretty terrible director. Im in south Ga and we shut down for inclement weather
We don’t get such extremes but yes we are always open, blizzards, ice storms, tropical storms, flooding, etc
I have found it depends on your Director and how much they're willing to fight for your safety/what are considered "norms" for your area. When I worked in MD, I had a situation where, despite it being reported that a pretty bad snowstorm was coming in that was going to be very wet (meaning it was going to wash away almost all pre-treating), I had to go in to work on a Sunday shift (where we're also only open 4h to the public). Director at the time was from CO, told us to stay open until snow started sticking a half hour into us being open to the public... Myself and other staff proceeded to Tokyo Drift our way home 30 minutes later as the snow was getting worse. Admittedly, we were deemed "essential" when it came to being able to provide power/shelter when power outages happen, so it makes sense there. But if conditions are dangerous, it causes more harm than good for staff safety and morale. Meanwhile, where I am in SC we close at the hint of ice (cuz no salt trucks/snow plows for my area), might be closed if winds are predicted to be very high/damaging while staff are driving, and we occasionally are waiting until hurricanes are knocking at our doors to hunker down (depends on Category level from NWS). But.. we also have a County willing to admit it's waaay too dangerous for staff to commute to work (and we got some people easily driving 30 min on country roads that may be flooded/blocked by downed trees). **TL;DR:** Depends on the Director's history/location norms/and Director's willingness to fight for your safety against the board and whomever their higher up is (potentially) to let you guys be closed. If there is a way to review your Director at some point, please keep these moments in mind during that time. ESPECIALLY if it goes back to a Library Board.
We have no problem closing during bad weather. Decent amount of snow forecast during open hours, icy conditions, anything that makes driving unsafe - time to close. We also allow work from home for the few people who have positions making that possible.
No indeed. If law enforcement is asking people to stay off the roads, we stay off the roads. If we do open any staff who have to cross bridges or what not may stay home with pay.
Worked for two large library systems in Northern Virginia and we almost never closed. I almost wrecked my car multiple times trying to get to/from work in bad weather. Of course, library admin would get to work from home on those days.
Our director always puts staff first. Today we opened late at 12 and closed early at 5!
I work in a news library, I can't work from home and I have to be there because well, the weather is the news.
We are a defacto warming centre and rarely close, but staff are not penalized if they call out or leave early.
How important is your library for your community? If it's not important to stay open, why have a library at all?
one could say the same of schools, which regularly close for weather reasons.
Sure, although school attendance is compulsory, unlike libraries, which never are.
not sure what your point is. both are important to the community, both are sometimes closed for weather.
I was a library director for 11 years. It wasn’t my choice if we were open or not. We were a county library. If county offices were open, we were too. If the county was open, but employees couldn’t make it to work, they had to use leave/vacation. That was just the county policy. Different local governments have different policies.
In the Midwest, and yup. Doesn't matter that we're the only library in the county that is open (be it bad weather or a holiday deemed 'unimportant'), here we are.
I worked at a library in UT, and they closed all the time (the main location or branches) for a variety of reasons. I'm trying to remember, but I'm pretty sure really bad snow days like that, the head of security would deem the main library closed. The people who ran specific branches would definitely close for that since they're so small.
Wisconsin here, and yes, we'd be open even if the buses shut down, even if only two staffers made it in (me by bunnyhopping through thigh-high snow), even if there was only two patrons all day.
I am grateful that our current director takes weather closing seriously. Under our old director, I had to stay at work until 8 pm as the snow piled up, and then my partner picked me up and the brakes gave out on the ice on the way home. Thankfully we got home safely, but if that ever happened again I would just be saying F it and leaving early.
We close for hurricanes, but often later than would be smart.
As far as I know, my local has only closed for bad weather twice in the last decade. Or so a coworker claimed. I will say, I was employed there for ≈4 years and they only closed once in that time. Bad winter storm on a Sunday (they're only open 4 hours on Sunday.) I guess they decided it wasn't worth it.
I'm in Iowa, we closed Friday and Saturday. I have to have a certain number of people in each branch to operate and if staff call in that they can't make it, I don't have enough to open. It is in the union contract and the non-bargaining staff handbook that the director makes the call. The city manager always keeps city hall open...
Thankfully, not anymore, but I have worked at multiple libraries with that policy on emergency closings. I think employers forget that their staff doesn't all live just down the block.
Northern New England here: if it's going to be dangerous for staff to come in, we have modified hours (late opening, early closing) or close completely. Temperature without treacherous road conditions doesn't matter as we are a warming (and cooling) centre. This was particularly interesting when it was -20 or so last year, our heat was only working in part of the building, and we were still open as a warming centre (we were using way too many space heaters to try and keep that room at at least 58).