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- Coronavirus – Public library ideas and responses
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- Imagine a library service with no buildings, we’re living there now. An interview with Matt Finch in the time of Coronavirus
- Public library services and Coronavirus, GLL a few weeks in
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- Coronavirus and public libraries – state of play 23 March
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- Coronavirus – Public library ideas and responses
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Coronavirus – Public library ideas and responses
Public libraries, like all other sectors, are having to learn fast what to do in this time of global pandemic. Here is a list of some of the things that are happening, or may do soon.
Ideas for now
The Basics, common to many library services currently:
- Remove ID requirements so non-members can join and access e-resources.
- Extend loans and renewals until after the outbreak. Waive all fines.
- Purchase more ebooks. Consider reducing the number of ebooks each person can borrow if demand outstrips supply.
- Online chat during office hours.
Boosting the online offer:
- Art competition – Newport.
- Bilingual Rhyme Times on video – Greenwich.
- Bookbug online – Scotland / Aberdeen.
- Contacting all users over 70 to check on welfare/tell them about e-resources.
- Creative writing – Bradford.
- David Walliams Elevenses – “Top children’s author David Walliams will be releasing an audio story every day for the next 30 days.”
- Dingbats – Guess the name/location by the emoji.
- E-book reviews.
- Escape room
- Gymkhana Library – Fun book-related competitive online games. via Vega La Camocha Public Library .
- Harry Potter – Philosopher’s Stone free on Audible or via Overdrive.
- Home library service.
- Publicise Learn My Courses on doing things online.
- Extend loan and renewals – Malta Libraries. Now universal.
- Hopster TV – Free 2 months with UK annual subscription, via DCA.
- Lego clubs
- Library Teddy – Pictures of teddy bear in various library postions. Can also be combined with “spot the teddy” photos.
- Livestreaming storytime – Kingston Libraries.
- Facebook book groups – Bristol, East Riding of Yorkshire.
- Newsguard – Free for the duration. Online filtering service. “It works on browsers and mobile devices by showing either red or green rating icons next to news links on search engines and social media feeds, including Google, Bing, Facebook, Reddit and Twitter.”
- Newsletter – e.g. “Temporary Times” from Deepings Community Library (volunteer).
- Online crafts.
- Pets reading books – Plymouth.
- “Quarantine Library” – Have all digital offers available from, and dominating, the homepage. See this example from West Sussex and this from Suffolk.
- Quiz – Reading.
- Reading groups – North Lanarkshire use Zoom for their book group and have done so for several month, Bromley uses Facebook LiveBournemouth Christchurch Poole use Twitter – #BCPBookChat , Warwickshire have a facebook reading group. Blackpool uses Twitter.
- Sharing stories of growing up – Hertfordshire.
- Stop motion – Gateshead.
- Summer Reading Challenge – It’s never too early to plan.
- Theatre show online – Cheshire West and Chester.
- Timetabling online events – Blackpool.
- Training courses – With Cisco. Norfolk.
- Wordsearches – City of London.
Tonight's challenge for you Catoosa County. Using only what you have around the house–for obvious reasons–recreate your favorite book cover. Show us your photo and the book cover! #books #reading #librariesathome pic.twitter.com/m1Y7rYeaCl
— The Library @ Catoosa (@CatoosaLibrary) April 1, 2020
See Libraries from home – Libraries Connected. “We want to help families to choose live and recorded events not just from their own library service but anywhere in the country. We’re also promoting activities to keep adults connected through library reading groups and book discussion groups.”. Lists five services each doing rhymetimes, storytimes, lego clubs, reading/book groups. Also “efestivals” and code clubs. Also mentions World Book Night and Get Creative At Home.
Globally, see this very comprehensive page from IFLA – COVID-19 and the Global Library Field – “The information and resources below are provided on a non-exhaustive basis but will be updated regularly. It is based on publicly available information, and that submitted to updates@ifla.org. We welcome additional ideas, references, suggestions and corrections to this address. Please see also our FAQs specifically concerning IFLA.”
Resources for now
Various library services, e.g, Kirklees, are doing comprehensive lists for the public. This one from 100% Digital Leeds is also impressive.
The following are ones noted while checking library news and emails. Library services should be aware that copyright rules still apply during the pandemic. This is especially important when looking at international, especially, US links which have differences. In the UK, “A simple way for you to check this for the UK is that copyright in the UK is typically the life of the author plus 70 years and it runs to the end of the calendar year 70 years after the author’s death. So, for example, Agatha Christie died in January 1976; so in the UK her works are protected by copyright until 31 December 2046.” Please note however that this does not constitute legal advice and the publisher should always be consulted if unsure.
- Amazon Prime Video – Range of Originals for children available for free.
- Ancestry – Now available to all library users remotely but needs library service to update URL (see this from Tower Hamlets) hence many not done so yet.
- Audible Stories – Free audiobooks for children and teens.
- Cambridge University Press – has made its collection of academic textbooks available online for free until the end of May.
- Cressida Cowell dragon competition.
- Europeana – Free EU culture and history.
- JSTOR – 6,000 ebooks and 150 journals available.
- Kid Normal – E-audiobook now free.
- Medici.tv – a reference catalogue of over 3,500 musical works filmed from the 1940’s through to the present day and 2,000 films including concert, documentaries, operas, ballets and master classes in High Definition. Available free until April 30. Available via DCA London.
- National Theatre – Free productions will be screened live on YouTube every Thursday, 7pm.
- Open Culture – Free courses, books, movies.
- Podcasts.
- Professional Photographers of America – 1100 free courses.
- Project Gutenberg – 60k free ebooks.
- Publisher Permission Details for Virtual Story-times during the Coronavirus Crisis – Teen Librarian. See also Responding to Covid 19 – Libraries Connected which also has a list.
- Room To Read – “Room to Read’s online learning platform, Literacy Cloud, https://literacycloud.org/, hosts easy-to-access online books, which have been specially developed by children’s authors and illustrators around the world for children in primary school.”
- Wikisource – 463k texts in English.
Staff training
Opening the Book – “Opening the Book has worked day and night over the last two weeks to adapt seven of our online courses so they can be taken from home without access to a library. We have set up new curated discussion boards for learners to keep in touch. Library staff in Ireland and Scotland are racing through and giving us great feedback. It’s a way of keeping a focus on our service professionalism; keeping in touch with colleagues; and we are supporting large rollouts to use this to plan and prepare programmes of activities they can implement, ready to go, when they get back to work. We also cut course prices instantly to enable more staff to access. We have to cover our costs so we can’t offer for free but these are definitely costed as not-for-profit.”
Staffing redeployments
Some staff will be on furlough (staying at home with Government paying 80% of salary but not doing work for the council) although it appears to be up to the council if they make up the other 20% of their salary. Please email me at ianlibrarian@live.co.uk if you can let me know what is going on in your service.
See the following for two in-depth looks about how particular services are doing:
- Aberdeen – Staff waiting to be redeployed, 5 April.
- Barnet – Frontline staff in Barnet are working from home calling vulnerable people to identify if they need support. Their service development team are continuing with development work, also working from home.
- Bournemouth Christchurch Poole – “working at the new call centre to support people isolated at home, developing further online resources, filming for YouTube, answering email enquiries, planning non contact Home Library deliveries, and missing seeing our customers”
- Bridgend – At least some staff to be on furlough.
- Bromley – Home delivery service customers now receiving regular phone calls.
- Bury – Staff working in the contact centre and 3 of the community hubs are based in libraries.
- Caerphilly – Likely to be redeployed.
- Cambridgeshire – staff redeployed as call handlers and phoning out to isolated residents, working with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough network of COVID-19 Coordination and Response Hubs.
- Cornwall – supporting Council contact centre and Council mailboxes, also working in the Shielding Programme, Registration Services. All staff are completing redeployment forms, to match skills to other essential Council services that need staff. But also working to develop our own online presence with storytimes, rhymetimes, book delivery for vulnerable people etc.
- Denbighshire – Denbighshire library staff are telephoning the people who have received shielding letters to make sure they have food, prescriptions etc, and also creating content for social media/ promoting eResources.
- Dudley – Five staff identified to answer calls to the Dudley Foodbank, one morning per week. Supporting Dudley Council for Voluntary Services – in providing a telephone service and delivering food and medication to vulnerable people. Mobile library and school library vans taking out medication which needs to be with patients within a 4 hour period.
- Durham – suggestions are customer service and befriending either via email or phone, food bank deliveries, and also bin collections.
- Essex – At least some staff furloughed. Some working on distribution of food.
- Greenwich – Online training and social media. Home Delivery service operating as normal (although under stringent safety standards).
- Hammersmith and Fulham – Redeployments to registration service.
- Hartlepool – Library & hub staff, alongside colleagues from other divisions, are helping run the support helpline providing support to the vulnerable and isolated. Taking calls, co-ord & delivering food boxes & prescriptions. Support Hub is based in Central Lib/Hub.
- Herefordshire – Redeployments to start soon.
- Kent – No redployments, Some deliver/support Registration, others library online services, with more senior people supporting business resilience work
- Kirklees – Staffing triage telephony system to help the community response. People in need can ring and volunteers can offer their support.
- Lewisham – Will be asked to volunteer for variety of council jobs inc. child protection and street cleaning.
- Manchester – staff volunteering to work in Covid contact centre, some staff working on online programme from home
- South Tyneside – Some redeployed to help in the Covid Response Centre answering calls and making calls to the most vulnerable in our community, also still running a non contact home readers service.
- Southwark – Staff being redeployed to “absolutely critical services like children’s and adults services, health and emergency planning”
- Stockport – “taking library telephone calls, supporting a CV19 telephone line, calling vulnerable people, supporting Registrars and delivering hearing aid batteries to incredibly grateful residents.”
- Surrey – Supporting Registrars, coroners and call centre.
- Sutton – Various redeployments to necessary council services.
- Wandsworth – Ravi Govindia, Leader of Wandsworth Council visits new Coronavirus Helpline Hub – Wandsworth Conservatives. “The hub is staffed by 40 members of staff drawn from other service areas including libraries and electoral services. When he visited this morning, Cllr Govindia heard that staff has already dealt with more than 200 calls in just over 24 hours. ” … 11 library staff supporting the Contact Centre, taking phone calls Home Library Service operating as normal and expanding numbers of customers as requests come in.
- Warwickshire – Some are staffing “Shielding Hub”, Regstrars, others answering online enquiries.
- Westminster – Staffing a new telephone service for shielded residents and others who need food and medication when self isolating. Basically organising rotas and being nice on the phone, asking the right questions to find out what they need. Being able to spell names and addresses.
- Wiltshire – staff helping to ensure vulnerable residents have access to food parcels & prescriptions, collating database of local voluntary orgs & signposting residents to community support groups. Also delivering library services online.
Ideas for reopening
Effectively, it’s hard to see how normal service can resume safely in public libraries until the crisis is over. Maintaining 2 metre exclusions between the public would be very hard, if not impossible, as would quarantining all books for 72 hours. The following are items which touch upon the issues involved.
- Touch free self-service machines – Cheshire East.
- Disinfect self-service machines properly – Bibliotheca.
- How to Sanitize Collections in a Pandemic – American Libraries. “The easiest, safest, and most inexpensive disinfectant is time.” … “That also means libraries should plan to stay closed until the risk of public infection is eliminated.”. But if not possible, “Internal hard surfaces, including tabletops, door handles, book drops, and computers, should be professionally cleaned. “
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Please send any news, comment or thoughts to ianlibrarian@live.co.uk.Numbers
From 1st April 2018 to March 2019, CIPFA reported 35 libraries closed cf 2017/2018 127 libraries lost. 2016/17 105 closed. 121 closed 2015/116, 106 2014/15, 29 2013/14, 201 2011/12 and 33 2010/11.
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