Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park is reducing its hours of operation from 90 to 80 a week in an attempt to save costs during the recession. The new schedule goes into effect Sunday, Feb. 1.

Kepler's will open at 10 a.m. -- one hour later -- from Monday through Saturday. It will close at 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, an hour earlier, and at 6 p.m. Sunday, two hours earlier.

A wry Clark Kepler, who owns the bookstore, described the new hours as "seasonal." Asked to clarify, he said, "We do it every time the economy goes really bad and we need to reduce our costs."

Mr. Kepler said he decided to cut from the beginning and end of the day because he's found that foot traffic is slowest at those times. Though sales during the holiday shopping season were better than he had expected, he said revenue was off by double digit percentage points from the fall of 2007.

"We're looking at every area where we can expand our revenue and go out into the community and sell books, but we still need to keep our costs down," Mr. Kepler said.

It made sense to cut hours now, he said, because February, March and April are typically the store's three slowest months.

Membership in Kepler's Literary Circle program, which entitles its subscribers to certain extra benefits, is also down, Mr. Kepler said, as people wait to see how bad the economy will get.

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