10 Philly libraries reopen their doors on Saturdays. They had been missed.

On Saturday, Kevin Drayton, a security guard at the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Charles Santore branch in Bella Vista, did something that had not been done in a very long time: He opened the library door for regular weekend hours.

“Welcome to Santore Library — Saturday edition!,” Drayton greeted visitors with a grin. “Showtime!”

Drayton was not alone in his enthusiasm. The Santore branch, on South Seventh Street, was one of 10 city libraries to reopen for weekend hours on Saturday, a long-awaited milestone in the Free Library’s post-pandemic rebound. The city had been without six-day library service for far too long, officials said. Many city branches have been closed on Saturdays since 2018, shuttered amid funding and staffing shortages. Others never returned to weekend service after the pandemic.

Earlier in the week, Free Library of Philadelphia president Kelly Richards and outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney said that, thanks to increases in funding, they hoped to have all 54 city branches back open on Saturdays by January. They cautioned that the rolling openings would depend on the success of an ambitious hiring blitz aimed at better staffing branches. Parkway Central Library, the city’s main branch, remains closed on Saturdays.

And while the openings represented a modest first step for the long-beleaguered system, they meant much more to the communities served by the libraries.

For some, the opening meant the return of a trusted place to escape and work.

John Strain, 31, was the first visitor Drayton greeted at the Santore branch. Strain likes to find a quiet table at Santore to study for his upcoming bar exam, and write fiction in his journals. He had heard about the reopening on the news and headed right over.

“Hemingway said: ‘A clean, well-lighted place,” Strain said. “And that’s how I think of it.”

For some visitors Saturday, the new hours meant a chance to enjoy a welcoming weekend hub without having to rush to beat weeknight closing times.

“You had to try to squeeze it in between picking up the kids, working, all the different things,” said Allison Ng, who brings her 7-year-old daughter, Coral, to Thomas F. Donatucci Sr. branch, on West Shunk Street in Girard Estates. Ng and other parents planted a hawthorn tree Saturday outside the historic library, which first opened in 1914, and had been closed on Saturdays since reopening from the pandemic.

Inside, in the Donatucci branch children’s reading area, Divya Mohan read a book about the Hindu holiday Diwali to her daughter, Jiya, 2. They had traveled from Fishtown for the chance to visit a library on a Saturday.

“We came all the way here because we wanted a library in the city,” Mohan said.

For some, Saturday hours at the library meant the return of a safe space in neighborhoods with far too few — and a chance to connect with vital services.

During the week, the Lillian Marrero Branch Library in Fairhill offers popular after-school services, such as its Edible Alphabet program, which teaches English through cooking. Now, the library can be a safe haven and offer programming on Saturdays, too, said Wyatt Beeler, a children’s librarian at the branch on West Lehigh Avenue.

“It’s another day for us to really push the community to come inside and discover,” Beeler said. “Especially the kids, so they’re not on the streets. We prefer them in here.”