Like most offices, the Monroe County Library has had to make adjustments to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but few places have flourished in the absence of normality like the Monroe County Library has.
Located at 62 West Main Street, Monroe County Library has been back open since mid-May following a two-month shutdown related to COVID-19. Initially, the library was only open for curbside service, but the doors were fully opened several weeks later and things are running in a much more traditional fashion now that the calendar has shifted to July.
Monroe County Library Branch Manager Kimberly Clayton said even with shortened hours, a limit of 10 patrons allowed inside the facility at one time and a requirement that all patrons wear masks, the library still saw three-fourths of its usual traffic during the month of June, far above the one-fourth normal volume reported by many other libraries around the country.
Clayton said, “People were excited for us to be opening up. . . We’ve had a lot of positive feedback. People are happy that we are requiring the masks, that we have wipes and hand sanitizer all over the place and that we’re regulating how many people. But even moreso than the safety precautions that we’re taking, they’re just excited for the library to be open. We’ve had so many people say, ‘You all are essential, and you never should have closed.’”
Clayton said the first few days of curbside service were slow but quickly picked up once word reached the public that the curbside feature was being offered. She said it was a similar response once the library doors re-opened with traffic increasing more and more each day. After a brief period of restricting children under 13 from entering the library, everyone is now invited to enter with children under 13 required to be accompanied by a parent (Children under the age of 10 will not be mandated to wear a mask).
Currently, the library has four computers available for online use for up to 30 minutes at a time. Clayton said she didn’t intend to allow computer use as quickly as she did upon re-opening but said she discovered almost immediately that Monroe County citizens have a shortage of options for using the internet.
“When I realized there were no options outside of them parking in our lot and using our WiFi, I kind of had to make that adjustment,” Clayton said. “So the computers are being used every day, and at some point during each day that we are open they are full.”
While the library is back open, Clayton and her five assistants, which include Jasa Brown, Marsha Canady, Marisha Crowder, Miriam Smith and Janet Yost, have had to improvise on their program offerings. The annual Summer Reading Program not only has the usual in-person sign-ups but this year also offers online registration through the Beanstack app. Reading prizes can be earned by logging books through Beanstack or through the normal library incentives. Since COVID-19 has slowed the momentum of the 2020 Summer Reading Program, Clayton said she plans to extend it into the fall school semester to ensure that more kids stay involved. As usual, children in each age group who read the most will receive a grand prize basket at the conclusion of the program. Clayton said since COVID-19 has limited a lot of kids’ normal activities, she expects this year’s winners to be among the most well-read kids that have ever gone through the program.
“I think the most that we’ve had is one year we had a teenager read around 1,000 hours,” Clayton said. “So if they can read that much during a regular summer, I can only imagine what they can do now when they can’t go anywhere.”
In June, Monroe County Library also hosted a pair of popular virtual guests, Lew-E the Clown and Ken Scott, who weren’t able to visit in person during COVID-19. Forsyth native Lew-E is a regular summer reading guest at the library while Scott is a Clayton County-based magician. Clayton said both performers taught their viewers a few sleight-of-hand tricks that allowed children to leave with a little secret knowledge. Both performances were broadcast on the library’s Facebook page, and Clayton said she was very impressed by the number of viewers they received, especially since they were the library’s first ever virtual programs.
“We had an amazing engagement online from both of those,” Clayton said. “Ken Scott was our kickoff and Lew-E, of course we can’t have summer reading without him. Both of those programs were absolutely amazing.”
Clayton said the next step in her virtual programming is to extend it beyond Facebook to capture children who might not have access to that particular form of social media.
Another online offering last month was a digital escape room entitled “Stranger Things” that was the brainchild of library assistant Marisha Crowder. Clayton said participants had to respond correctly to challenges in order to escape the digital room.
“Marisha designed the whole thing, and I thought it was really neat,” Clayton said. “It’s thought-provoking and perfect for teenagers who enjoy spending time on computers and doing things digitally.”
A fun in-person activity that took place last month was a Sidewalk Chalk Day in which kids got to enjoy the outside while drawing on parking spaces. Clayton said 10 children of all ages and their parents participated, listening to music on speakers while they drew.
“We had a pretty good turnout, much better than we expected,” Clayton said. “It was a way to get the kids out of the house, get them a little engaged. They were able to have a story after they finished their drawings. And then I think the parking lot stayed painted for three days, so the other kids that drove up got to see all of the paintings and markings in the parking lot. It was just a fun way to get them to the library, engage them at the library, but still keep social distancing in mind.”
Another socially distanced outdoor activity that Monroe County Library had intended for some Wednesday nights this summer was a Drive-In Movie Series at the Monroe County Recreation Department. However, untimely rain has caused all films to be cancelled so far this summer. Clayton said the Friends of the Library sponsored the Series and bought the library a 12-foot movie screen while a corporate sponsor, Georgia Power, provided a projector. Clayton said she hopes the weather will cooperate later this summer, and the movie nights can still happen.
Future in-person programs that Monroe County Library will host include a petting zoo and a cooking class. The library was also recently notified that it has been selected as a recipient of a $2,900 Dollar General Summer Reading Literacy Foundation grant. Clayton said the library will use the grant funds to debut a program called Sensibility Storytime, which will target differently-abled or autistic children and their families. The storytimes will be sensory-based, which could include low light and music or a sensory table featuring water, sand and water beads that promotes touch. The children will also have access to theme-based kits that engage each sense, including aroma therapy Play Doh, read-along books, fidget toys, etc. Clayton said the kits will be available for checkout beginning in August while the library determines the safest way to allow these children to visit the library in-person.
“We’ll have ways to sanitize those things so that children can come in and feel comfortable and safe and enjoy storytime as well,” Clayton said. “That was a big one for me. I’m really excited about that.”
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Monroe County Library offered E-books through a service called RBdigital that appears at the bottom of the home page on the Flint River Regional Library System website. Library members can create an account using their library card numbers that will give them full access to the Flint River E-book collection. Clayton said the popularity of E-books during COVID-19 has caused the system to increase the amount of E-book selections available for circulation.
While Clayton said she knew the day would come that Monroe County Library would have to catch up fully to the digital age, she said COVID-19 has sped up that process tremendously.
“It’s a learning curve for everybody, but I think it’s an adjustment that was well needed,” Clayton said. “Sometimes you need that push to go ahead and figure out to make things work. It’s definitely, definitely been something that you didn’t expect. But it’s one of those things where once you’re pushed into it, you have no choice but to make it happen. And so I’ve accepted it and taken it as it comes. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to make sure the people get what they need to get.”
Clayton said during the two months the library was closed, she spent significant time on library blogs, listservs and webinars comparing re-opening and programming ideas with other librarians. Clayton said she quickly learned that other librarians had the same concerns and fears that she felt.
“It was rough at the beginning because you’re thinking that you’re in this all alone and then you realize that even these bigger states and larger, huge library systems are having the same issues,” Clayton said. “And some of them of course had digital programming, but when it comes to the fact that you can’t be in the building, the patrons can’t be in the building, it turns into something different. . . It was just interesting to hear all the different obstacles and difficulties that people were having across the nation that you were thinking, ‘What am I gonna do in little bitty Monroe County?’ And then you find out that someone way over in California is having the same problem, and their library system is three of four times bigger than yours. It kind of brought all libraries into a sense of solidarity where we’re all in this point and time that we’ve never been before. So we’re all kind of leaning on each other and watching each other to see what everybody else is doing so we can figure out what we’re going to do locally.”
The Monroe County Library is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
