Grande Prairie Public Library

From Grande Prairie Public Library:
 

Library Service while the building is closed to the public

• We have morning meetings to announce news and changes, and to work together to find solutions. Jill has been taking minutes so we will someday have a record to look back on
• We are zooming people in to the meeting if they are working from home
• I’ve lost count, but several people are working from home to help sick family members, deal with not having child care, self-isolation, and more. This week, several returned after a period of self-isolation
• We still have 15-25 on site every day working around the building. We are grateful for the immense space that allows us to do so safely
• Corey has provided a laptop (from our laptop lab) to every staff member who can work from home and made it possible to remotely access their desktops in case we are locked out of the building. Some are using them to work from home for other reasons
• Customer Service staff have been doing curbside holds (physically distanced holds) for the public. This has been incredibly successful and we expect we’ll do a version of this when we re-open
• We’ve diverted a lot of our materials budget to electronic materials and Charlotte is ordering more e-resources for the public to reflect the increased use.
• Jacob has been providing online “paint nights” for kids
• Hailey created a virtual escape room
• Marci and Jill are exploring Zoom to host various programs at a distance including book clubs
• Hailey, Fran, Jill, and Theresa have continued to work the reference desk, answering reference questions via phone, email, social media, and online chat
• Some subjects:
  • Library closure
  • Late fees
  • Returning items/book drop
  • Holds
  • Programs
  • PIN
  • Obtaining memberships
  • Technical help with accessing eresources
  • Reader’s advisory
  • Finding information on microfilm
• Customer Service staff are renewing memberships so people can access online resources
• Customer Service is helping people get electronic memberships so they can access online resources if they’ve never had a card
• The entire team is engaging the public through social media and have seen over 87.5K people interact with our facebook alone in the first 2 weeks we were closed. Other social media interactions are up between 27% and 221%
• Mikyla is working on a podcast and figuring out a summer reading game that we can manage possibly without students and possibly virtually
• Amanda is working on an online storytime that runs daily and is in the process of creating a daily Lego challenge
• We have a fabulous Friday book club via Facebook
• Job Seekers Help, run by Jill, is moving online and will likely expand to include assistance with EI
• Michelle has created a COVID-19 information page, a Quarantine Activities page, and is working on a page just for our programming in addition to her crisis communication and an increased amount of social media work
• We’ve donated 1000 period products to Rotary House, 500 to Sunrise House, and 500 to NorthReach from our Project: Full Stop Program made possible by the RBC Community Challenge Grant
• Jacob has created a Battle of the Books-type challenge on Facebook
• Judy is completing the inventory of our furniture and fixtures. We’ve been using an 11-year-old inventory for our insurance
• Hailey and Corey are working together on a grant application that I’ll tell you about when we speak (I don’t want the idea to leak)
• Once the pages had shelved all the materials that had been returned (this took two full weeks of us being closed for them to catch up to everything), they started on weeding projects, shelf-reading, cleaning the shelves, and will be doing inventory
• The list of things we want to do could last us six months easily
• Facilities has repaired and painted damaged walls
• Facilities is working to remove our obsolete security gates and repair the floor
• Facilities closed our book drop for us
• Custodial is keeping the place safe so we don’t die from the doorknobs
• Custodial has ramped up cleaning and is shampooing carpets, doing high cleaning, sanitizing everything they can see, and more

Some basic stats (Monday, March 16 to Wednesday, April 1):

• Circulation – 3180 items have been checked out
• Renewals – 2600 items have been renewed
• E-Resources – 2426 electronic resources have been borrowed
• Renewed Library cards – 2135
• Online registration – 136 people have signed up for library cards online

Our circulation is about 630 items/day (including renewals) while we’re closed. It is about 700-800 items/day while we’re open, so we continue to offer a high level of service.

We are trying to figure out how to safely allow materials back into the library. This will require a 3-day quarantine to protect staff. Ideas have been thrown around but have not settled on a good way yet.

Everyone, from people at home while caring for their children, to people on site, has been absolutely amazing. I could not be more proud of this team and how they’ve come together to make the new library work. They’ve been imaginative, strong, excited, and so willing to serve the community. Everyone has gone beyond what I expect of them.