Question about re-opening: originally the campus was going to be opened with closed stacks. But, the question came up whether it was really necessary to close their stacks. What is your library doing?
--One public library has limiting browsing; people can go into the stacks.
-- One library: curbside for about a month. Opened up computers by appointment. At that time, the stacks were closed off. This week, started opening 15 minute appointments just to browse the stacks. In between the appointments, take 5 minutes to wipe down the materials. Everything that has been touched, hast to be put in quarantine. Limited it to 5 people in adult section; in children’s room, limited to one family at a time. In YA, one computer and one browser position. Very restricted on the number of people in the building. Appointments for curbside and browsing - use computer program to assign people times.
-- Not something that has been decided. A lot of online registrations - 700 registrations for cards.
-- One college wants regular hours in the fall - open to midnight. There are a lot of questions with that; how will staff pull materials for students if the stacks are closed?
-- Another college is going to be completely remote in the fall. A lot of uncertainty; things are still in flux.
-- One college: gotten rooms at best western so students can quarantine for two weeks. The library is going to be closed, but open with classroom space. The stacks will be closed and there will be curbside delivery. All the reference will be regular but remote.
-- A lot of colleges have to open to survive.
Are a lot of books checked out from the stacks?
-- About 4,000 2018-2019. Most of them are faculty, ILLs, and faculty teachers. Circulation has gone down. Database use has gone up, which is helpful right now.
Three different models for classes: hybrid; online; asynchronous. Professors have the options to be remote or teach outside if they want.
Do you have portable hand sanitizer in the stacks? Is there any concern about theft?
-- Hand sanitizer all over the library. Can’t mandate that people use them. They also have contact tracing forms. They can’t tell people they have to fill them out; it’s something that’s available.
-- Also have masks and gloves for people who come without. Haven’t had many people ask for those materials.
-- Staff also have face shields. You touch your face a lot without realizing, so staff did wear face shields. Being very cautious.
-- There are a lot of people who come in the summer from the city. A lot of people who have come up from the city can be lax. At the library, they’ve determined if you don’t have a mask you can’t come in.
-- There are a lot of things available; it just depends on what people want to take advantage of.
Who do you get people to wear masks?
--Frame it in a positive way; this is for everyone’s protection, we’re just trying to keep people safe.
--Offer people masks instead of asking them to leave.
Desk shields and partitions are being put in place.
It’s hard to not be in person; working at the front desk is a very social, hands-on job. It is a challenge to do these things remotely.
Does anyone use Tipasa for their inter-library loan?
--ILLiad has been a challenge managing remotely.
--Tipasa is cloud-based - is it better?
--It’s like going from a cadillac to a bad car
--They have made some improvements. They were selling it really hard and provided a discount. They said they were no longer going to do ILLiad (a big reason why people moved).
-- It has been helpful during Covid - however, if it you like ILLiad’s customization, it’s not a good fit. No customization available for Tipasa. Can’t have things look a certain way.
-- Patrons don’t even notice.
-- One downside is that you can no longer be a part of IDS.
-- Their logic doesn’t work 50% of the time.
-- It’s a good service if you need something basic; if you need more customization and want to use logic for routing, ILLiad is better.
Any good professional development for resource sharing?
-- OCLC has offered some good webinars - last one was on ILL statistics.
--RCLS: Niche academy, a bunch of different webinars and tutorials.
--Webjunction
--It is exhausting to do so much professional development; have to do webinars to keep up with normal work hours.
--If you get the recording of webinars, you can speed them up to 2x. You can also have a little flexibility which helps when you have small kids.
--Tech-talk webinars have been really helpful.