By Saara Itkonen, chief librarian at the Creston Public Library
With the dark, short days of winter almost upon us, weathering the pandemic through the next few months can feel exhausting and overwhelming to even think about. A few months ago, I wrote about how reading about past pandemics might help encourage us that we will get through this one.
But now, with winter approaching, and the pandemic dragging on, I’ve been feeling so blue that I can only read and watch content that will bring me happiness or joy. Only absolutely light-hearted fare for me!
I know I’m not alone in this. With the new wave of provincial COVID-19 orders, the library has been fielding a lot of questions about whether or not we’ll be staying open, so it’s pretty obvious that many of you are depending on library materials to help support you during this time and are concerned the library might close.
I want to reassure you that even if the province asks us to close our public space, our library staff will continue to offer materials loaning through curbside pickup and home delivery service.
We continued to offer these services back in the spring and we are prepared to do so again, should we need to.
For now, as of writing this, the library doors are still open and you can browse and borrow from our collections, use our computers, and have a brief chat with our staff and each other as long as you follow the provincial mandatory mask rule and wear one during your visit. We’re counting on you to help us stay open by helping keep our fellow staff and patrons safe. We’re a small community and we all need to care for each other to get through this difficult time.
We also continue to offer online services for those of you that can’t visit us in person. If you are unsure about navigating our website to find resources that you need, please don’t hesitate to give us a call and we can help walk you through it.
One of the more noticeable changes we’ve seen during this pandemic is the increased use of our digital magazines and e-books collections. A lot more of you are downloading books and magazines to read at home and we are so happy to provide that service for you.
We’ve invested more money into providing Creston-only access to extra copies of popular ebooks, and we recently purchased two new Kobo e-readers (to replace our older models) for you to borrow and try out downloading ebooks at home. We’ve even had patrons borrow an e-reader and then decide to purchase one for themselves. Consider it an e-reader test-drive, if you will.
We’re also working hard on gathering all our children’s tech tools together (the ones we’ve used for kid’s programming) into kits for you to borrow from us in the new year. If we can’t provide in-house programming, maybe your children will enjoy playing with digital tools in your own house?
And, finally, we’re also working on a new library website that will, hopefully, make it easier for you to find our digital resources and information about our library services. We know that our online services will only grow over future years, so we’re using this pandemic to get our digital house in order.
In the meantime, our staff are here to help recommend some reading for you, assist you with your digital device, and to chat with you about any of your library needs. We’re all weathering the winter pandemic together and we all know that our community needs us more than ever right now.
We are, as always, happy to serve you.