The Support Staff SIG met online via Zoom. Clarisa Rosario-DeGroate convened the meeting, and these are notes.
The originals can be viewed on a shared document here.
NEW! ALA is offering a free webinar on April 3 at 1pm on Copyright:
Support Staff SIG 3/31/2020
How have your roles changed?
Student coordinators have to be creative to keep their time occupied
Circulation workers who do book repairs, artwork, talk to patrons are doing tutorials and artwork for the summer program. What will happen with the summer program is still in question.
It’s hard to know what to do when your job centers on the building and you can’t be in the building.
Tech services: the bulk of the job is processing. Right now, people are doing webinars, some professional development, but overall there’s not much to do.
Circulation clerks are upset that working from home and technology training has been difficult for them.
One library is also trying to generate a call list for our patrons who may not be have e-mail or be able to get online and we will be calling them just to check in and inform them on what is going on with their library
Resources
Web Junction https://www.webjunction.org/home.html
Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ (Coursera has a really good course on copyright for educators and librarians/library staff.)
Learn Spanish and ASL: https://mangolanguages.com/
ACRL Webcast For Academic Libraries: Academic Librarianship in the Wake of Coronavirus
http://www.ala.org/acrl/conferences/elearning/acrlpresents
Ivy League colleges are offering online courses for free
SCR CONNECTions - Combating Loneliness in Older Adults (June 13, 2018) this was a youtube video that was very informative https://youtu.be/W_x3EsII4Tc
EveryLibrary https://www.everylibrary.org/
Hoonuit https://hoonuit.com/
New York Public Library has offered cards to anyone in the state through the SimplyE app. https://www.nypl.org/books-music-movies/ebookcentral/simplye
Does anyone else have the option / requirement to go into the building?
The colleges are completely closed.
Some people could go in for a little bit
Newburgh is letting a few people in at a time
People want to keep busy, and are keeping a log for the day
POK library is allowed to use work time to make masks
Webinar ideas:
How to spot misinformation
Checking the webpages and looking for broken links and bad information
Privacy issues that come about with remote work
Sexual harassment prevention training
Social media postings
How are we adjusting to the challenges of being in our homes all day?
We miss the interaction and the face-to-face with students & patrons.
The rhythm of the day, doing certain tasks at the same time. Time is getting lost.
Interacting virtually is such a challenge. We miss the patrons, children, teens, senior citizens, and everyone.
Trying to fill the time, creating a schedule is helpful that way.
People are having regular meetings via Zoom and GoToMeeting to catch up with co-workers.
Not everyone has access to high-speed internet, or laptops. That prohibits the use of Zoom and other web-based services.
Some libraries were calling and talking to their patrons directly. If you’re doing that, how is it going?
Tappan started doing that with patrons who were over a certain age and didn’t have email addresses. They called them with a list of resources, and 99% of them didn’t need anything, but they were grateful to talk to someone. It also gave them a chance to talk about what resources are available online from the library (like story time)
How are you coping? Are you doing self-care?
MSMC is offering counseling to students, and there are stress-reduction videos to watch.
Limit watching the news!
We have access to EAP through work if people need it https://www.theeap.com/
Mo Willems doodles
Guided meditation on YouTube
Yoga by Zoom
Exercise is important, even if it’s just going for a walk.