Bring on the highly anticipated three-day weekend! I am ready!
Our pace has slowed significantly as we wrapped up our Epic Athenaeum series last week (for more info on this digital program series, check out this Weekly Nibble). I’m now working on a much simpler weekly series called Fairy Tale STEAM (stay tuned for July’s programming post for more info). I managed to get caught up this week, cross off everything on my to-do list, and have a stress-free curbside shift yesterday.
I hosted a Zoom session with some of our Librarians-in-Training and alumni from last year on Wednesday to give them a behind-the-scenes look at what curbside, quarantining materials, and social distancing looks like in the library right now. Despite some technical difficulties, it was really cool to get to talk with them and show them how we are operating. We ended on a fifteen-minute readers’ advisory session and recommended lots of new books which haven’t been circulating well due to lack of browsability, so that was fun as well. It felt almost “normal.”
Numbers of COVID-19 cases are still climbing in our area, and our board renewed their commitment to stick to the 14-day decline model before reopening to the public, giving us a much needed breather to cement our plans. I did notice more people wearing masks at curbside yesterday, which was an encouraging sight.
Perhaps my favorite thing that’s happened a couple of times over the past week is that patrons have been catcalling us in the most heartwarming way. Toward the end of last week, two colleagues and I were out collecting the curbside signage when a man in a truck pulled by the front of the library, rolled down his window, and said “Thank you for keeping us in books right now!” Just a couple of days ago, Kip and I were walking to the park for a fifteen-minute break and just as we were about to cross the street, a storytime mom rolled by and yelled “We miss you!” out her window. Definitely the best way anyone has ever yelled at me from a moving vehicle. =)
Much Hamsters 