Covid Chronicles. Chapter 107: Public libraries in the Madison area are slow to reopen for full service

 

Read chapter 106 here

Photo by Retiring Guy

Saturday, February 20, 2021  

I haven’t used the services of a public library since before the pandemic. I feel as though I’m letting down my former vocation. (OK, there was that one time I looked at Consumer Reports washer and dryers reviews on the Middleton Public Library website, but that does nothing to assuage my guilt.) 

Public libraries everywhere closed their doors at the start of the pandemic. In Dane County, most of those doors remain closed, with some very specific exceptions. The Madison Public Library, for example, offers access to its public computers, both by appointment and walk-in use. The library’s guidelines note that All of the building doors remain locked, so I’m unsure how the latter option works. Maybe there’s a buzzer at the entrance? You’d think this procedure would be more fully explained. Service hours are limited: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Central Library and 12 noon to 4:30 p.m. at 3 of the 8 branches, all 3 serving low-income neighborhoods. 

Middleton, on the other hand, does not allow anyone to enter the building beyond the lobby under any circumstances, although use of the library’s free wi-fi is encouraged. (Library staff have moved several of the facility’s WIFI radios to external windows in all directions, for a gigabit fiber connection to the Internet while outside the Library.) Last spring I read numerous newspaper articles about families, particularly in rural areas of the state, parking their car near a public library so that their children, now attending school virtually, could access classroom materials and do their homework. 

Otherwise, Middleton offers many of the same services that Madison does. People can place holds on library materials through the South Central Library System’s online catalog and then schedule a time for curbside pick-up once notified that the items are available. Pick-up times are offered 6 days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 12 noon to 6 pm; Tuesday and Thursday from 12 noon to 8pm, and Saturday from 12 noon to 5 pm. Before the weather turned cold, staff placed a number of book trucks offering a selection of library materials under the front entrance portico. This service continued at least through November’s early voting period. And maybe it’s not continued in the lobby, though I wouldn’t know for sure since I haven’t placed a hold since early 2020. 

As you can see from the calendar of events for February, library programming has not disappeared during the pandemic, although none of it, of course, is conducted in person. Zoom and Facebook Live to the rescue. The offerings include twice-weekly storytimes (compared to 8-10 per week in Before Times); a weekly Digital Escape Room program that allows children to work together or alone on their puzzle solving skills (not familiar with this one); and topical programs for children, teens and adults. People can still call the library for information, although I suspect this offering doesn’t have many takers. Telephone reference service was already on the decline when I retired from the library in 2008. 

Smaller libraries in the rural areas of Dane County have been the first to reopen their doors. Mount Horeb, just a few miles from the Iowa County line in the western part of the county, offers a slightly reduced schedule of hours – 56 per week, including the senior/at risk hours, compared to 61 in Before Times. I’m curious to know how many hours per week are required for cleaning and sanitizing and if this extra duty is done in-house. During my 22 years at Middleton, we contracted with a cleaning service. Additional services related to the pandemic would require a renegotiated contract, unless the city decided to step up with additional janitorial services for city facilities. 

I try to imagine working at the Middleton Public Library for a year without any of the public entering the building to browse the shelves, attend a program, use a computer, read a newspaper or magazine, make a photocopy, bring their child to a storytime (always the most cacophonous time of the day). How odd an experience that would be. Being familiar with Zoom and similar video conferencing apps, I know it doesn’t make up for being there in person. For that reason, I think many people are eager to get back to their workplaces on a daily basis, to have meetings in person, to be able to interact with people when you are all in the same room. I know I would be. During my 7-year run as an adjunct assistant professor at UW-Madison library school, I much preferred teaching in the classroom to teaching online, the latter of which was done asynchronously, i.e., students listening to a PowerPoint lecture on their own, logging onto UW’s TeachOnline whenever they wished. I suspect the software has been greatly improved and upgraded since I ‘retired’ in 2015.