A temporary shortage of librarians is forcing the Oliver La Farge Library to close on Saturdays until early May.

City Library Director Patricia Hodapp said the library staff of 61 is down by 10 due to retirements, resignations and illnesses.

She said it will take a few months to advertise externally for all the vacancies because of union rules that require that current city employees be given the first crack at the openings.

"We first advertise, interview and possibly hire internally and, if we hire internally, that creates another vacancy," she said.

Six of the 10 retirees were librarians -- jobs requiring master's degrees -- who had been hired within months of each other and all had reached 25 or 26 years of tenure, Hodapp said. She said another four employees resigned for various other reasons, including illness and pending moves to other cities.

Hodapp said she is in the process of hiring from the outside for one clerical position because no city employee applied for it. But until she is able to fill the other vacancies, she said, the eight professional librarians still on staff will have to be spread more thinly over the city's three public libraries.

The La Farge Library, 1730 Llano St., is named for Oliver La Farge, 1901-63, a writer and anthropologist who won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Laughing Boy about alcoholism among Navajos; chronicled the first century of The New Mexican in Santa Fe: Diary of a Southwestern Town; and lobbied for the town's historic-preservation laws.

The branch library, the smallest of Santa Fe's three city libraries, was opened 38 years ago on property leased from the Santa Fe Public School District, near De Vargas Middle School.

So far, Hodapp said, only five patrons have complained about the three-month moratorium on Saturday operations at the La Farge Library, beginning Feb. 4. It should reopen on Saturdays beginning May 5.

"I took one phone call and I explained that we still have two branches open on Saturday," she said.

The Main Library, 145 Washington Ave., continues to be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

The 5-year-old Southside Library, 6599 Jaguar Drive, is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and closed Sundays.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.