As the coronavirus pandemic intensifies, medical workers worldwide are facing a critical shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPEs — the masks, face shields, gloves and aprons that protect them from the deadly virus.
“Residents were used to being out and about; they came into the library for programs and read-alouds, they had off-campus jobs, they went to the movies and the pool. […] Unfortunately, once the pandemic came around, they became one of the most isolated groups in our community,” says Jolene Poore, director of Ada Public Library in Ada, Oklahoma.
"Wi-Fi hotspots have been a Godsend for our community,” says Brenda Cervantes, grants and special projects administrator at Yuma County Public Library in Arizona. “With no coffee shops or large shopping centers, there are essentially no spaces in the community that provide free Wi-Fi or internet service outside of the libraries.”
The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered the realities of the digital divide in communities across the United States. As schools and jobs went online, libraries became an increasingly important destination for patrons who needed to connect to the internet. Libraries offered Wi-Fi hotspots and, in some instances, parking lots became offices.
ALAÂ is partnering with Communities for Immunity, an unprecedented collaboration among libraries and museums to boost COVID-19 information and vaccine confidence in communities across the United States.
ALAÂ is partnering with Communities for Immunity, an unprecedented collaboration among libraries and museums to boost COVID-19 information and vaccine confidence in communities across the United States.
Libraries are always working to find ways to meet our customers’ needs, especially during times of crisis. Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, we continue to face the unique challenges brought on by COVID-19. One of those challenges is mask-wearing.
A year and a half into the pandemic, I’m contemplating a fall semester that might be more like fall 2019 than fall 2020, though the COVID-19 delta variant continues to loom like a specter over my financial literacy programming plans.
Through it all, I’m mostly thinking about what to keep from a fully remote year and how to most effectively prepare for a potential pivot back to remote delivery or other unexpected changes.
With COVID-19, libraries quickly pivoted to move their programs and events online. The early months were about figuring out "the how" and getting new routines in place; now it is time to find meaningful ways to evaluate and assess the success of what we are offering.
Just counting attendance will never tell a holistic story of whether a program succeeded or failed. There is so much more data that we can collect to tell a complete story about library programming to funders and board members, to prepare to apply for grants, and to plan for the future.
Most in-person programs for older adults have been put to a halt for the better part of a year. No worries, however! They can still be done online or by phone, says Jon Kay, director of Traditional Arts Indiana and associate professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington.
Partnerships with community organizations can often enhance the financial literacy programming that libraries can offer their patrons themselves.
I have been trying to write this blog post for weeks. The more time that goes by, the more guilt I feel. The powers that be at ALA are going to lose their patience with me, I tell myself. One post a month is not that huge of a commitment — just send it already! I frequently feel this crushing sense of guilt about a lot of things, particularly this year, and I don’t think I’m alone.
For the past year our library has had a great deal of success with our escape rooms and have planned to continue adding new ones. As the pandemic threatened to bring these events to screeching halt, I knew there had to be a way to build a new escape room and still keep it within the COVID guidelines.
As 2020 begins to wind down, we can reflect on all that we’ve learned about virtual programming. Many of us entered the year as novices, but we're leaving it with some serious skills — whether from wrangling a boisterous virtual book club or shifting a cultural heritage festival from stage to screen.
But have you mastered the art of marketing your virtual programs? Or are you still struggling to get people to log in?
Startup Sharp with the Augusta Library is a four-part webinar series that teaches people how to market their own small business from home.
Document your Story: COVID-19 Pandemic Project Archive brought together three community organizations to collect and preserve material created during COVID-19 from many different perspectives. This project has collected material from a variety of community members, such as local artists, diarists, the local business community, Muncie citizens, and Ball State University students, faculty and staff.
Before COVID-19, the Princeton (N.J.) Public Library adult programming team periodically would discuss how we could offer a virtual component to accompany our in-person library programming. Could we livestream our larger events to an overflow space within the library? What would be the best way to record some of our programs and make them available to the public afterwards? These questions were discussed, with varying degrees of urgency, for months.
With COVID-19, many libraries were thrown into uncharted terrain when it came to programming. And so — as libraries do — they quickly innovated, coming up with a vast array of virtual programs in a short time. Some were twists on old favorites while others were brand new concepts.Â
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
These words, from the great Civil Rights activist Assata Shakur, are a familiar refrain for protesters today. This refrain is a rallying cry and a reminder that fighting for our freedom is both a duty and an expression of love for our own humanity.
Virtual Language Conversation Hours invite already conversant speakers of a second language to gather and practice in a casual setting. Through interactions with the group, participants strengthen their language skills in organic and accessible ways while also providing opportunities to explore various cultures.
In times of increasing potential isolation this provides space for genuine connections between new people with shared interests.
