The Brookline Library is taking the money and running (with a full summer of Sundays at Coolidge Corner).

Brookline's Board of Library Trustees voted unanimously to take the $8,000 granted them by Town Meeting and use it to keep the library open on Sundays for the full summer. Library Trustee Michael Burstein (and Patch columnist) tweeted about the decision at the meeting on Tuesday night. 

The idea has been popular among the town's Jewish community, some of whom have not been able to use the libraries on Saturdays because of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. 

Throughout discussion of summer Sundays, the Library Trustees have insisted that they will staff the Coolidge Corner library only with library employees who have volunteered for the task. The $15,000 budget item goes largely toward paying those salaries.

In April, the Trustees came before the Board of Selectmen to request $15,000 to keep the library open on Sundays throughout the summer. Concerned about increasingly tight budgets, the selectmen asked the trustees to return with a smaller request. 

Which they did, when they requested $7,000 in March. The compromise between the two boards was brought before Town Meeting at the end of May, when Town Meeting voted to give them the full $15,000 initially requested by voting down the $7,000 amendment.

The Library will be open on Sundays through July and August. This is a pilot program for the library, which could determine the fate of future summer Sundays.