Library in the Time of COVID-19

As many of you already know, I'm currently working towards my Masters of Information Science, which is a fancy way of saying I'm studying to be a librarian. As someone with a background in history, and who has recently been doing a unit about community history collections, the current historical moment has been equal parts terrifying and fascinating, and as I have adjusted, has settled down to become purely fascinating. (In fact, with restrictions beginning to ease here in WA, I am actually feeling almost sad that soon things may have to go back to normal, as I was enjoying all the extra time to read...) Obviously pandemics are very serious, and I'm not an expert in infectious diseases, medicine or anything like that, but I am really interested in the way that libraries have been responding to the new challenges raised by social distancing and so on. A few weeks ago, I wrote a poem about a team of brave librarians pivoting their services to keep the people supplied with books to read (as many of them have done here) and it has been widely shared online. For anyone who hasn't seen it, here it is:


What has your local library been doing differently in response to the current situation? How have they changed the way they do things to keep their staff and patrons safe?  It's Library and Information Week this week, so let's get talking!  

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