Pandemic Forces Programs to Move Online

Libraries adapt quickly to the crisis

June 1, 2020

Salt Lake County (Utah) Library’s story sacks contain a blank book, a pencil, and other materials that serve as prompts to inspire storytelling. Photo: Melodie Kraft Ashley
Salt Lake County (Utah) Library’s story sacks contain a blank book, a pencil, and other materials that serve as prompts to inspire storytelling. Photo: Melodie Kraft Ashley

On March 12, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) Public Library (CDAPL) canceled its in-house programming. By March 13, Young Adult Coordinator Angela Flock and Youth Services Coordinator Mandi Harris had a plan for moving some of that programming online.

Why the urgency? “Sure, we want to increase literacy and provide fun events,” says Flock. “But I was more concerned about my teens’ mental health. Social interaction is super-important for a teen’s development. Also, for some of them, the library is a safe place away from the issues that they may be having at home. I wanted to continue giving them as much of that experience as possible.”

CDAPL is just one of many libraries that has altered programming plans—for children, teens, and adults—because of COVID-19. Some libraries are figuring out how to digitize as many programs as possible. Others are taking the virus into account when planning future activities. Still others find themselves pondering how the pandemic may permanently change the nature of library programming.

Since Flock’s library canceled its in-person programming (before shutting its doors to the public entirely), she has moved two of its weekly teen clubs online: a Dungeons and Dragons group and a videogame club. Thanks to her work with teens, she knew that most of them already used Discord, a chat-based communication platform.

“Discord gives you the ability to make a server, which is like a little private island that you can invite people to,” she explains. “Within the server, the creator can give people roles and create limits and boundaries, while also creating text and voice chat channels. It’s ideal for small-group discussion as well as text-based sharing with more privacy than many other social media platforms can provide.”

Since creating a Discord server and inviting her teen regulars to join it, Flock has seen about four of them participate in the virtual Dungeons and Dragons group and another four in the videogame group. She expected that as Idaho’s stay-home order (issued March 25) continued and word of the Discord server spread, those participation numbers would increase, perhaps approaching the 10–15 that her previous, in-person sessions garnered.

Digital escape rooms

The March 14 closure of Peters Township (Pa.) Public Library meant that Youth Services Librarian Sydney Krawiec didn’t get to hold the escape room event she’d planned for that day. So instead, she used Google Forms to create a digital escape room with a Harry Potter theme. Since she posted a link to it on the library’s teen Facebook page, it has received more than 150,000 hits from users around the world.

“In the first two days, I was getting about 30 emails a day, wanting to know if it was okay to share it with other people,” she says. “Like: ‘We want to save it and do it for our daughter’s birthday party this weekend, so she can do it on Zoom with her friends.’ A soccer organization said they were going to do it over a conference call for a team-building activity. A police department talked about how they can adapt a Google Form for online training. It blows my mind.”

Success in smaller numbers

At the Calvin S. Smith branch of Salt Lake County (Utah) Library, which closed to the public March 13, Youth Services Librarian Melodie Kraft Ashley is thinking ahead to the summer reading season and the many library-led craft projects that usually go along with it. Since it’s uncertain when the library will reopen, Ashley is making those projects into kits that participants will be able to pick up and take home if necessary. For example, to emphasize the branch’s summer reading theme of “Imagine Your Story,” Ashley is making “story sacks”—paper bags containing small blank books along with small random household items that will act as story prompts.

This approach may come in handy even after the branch reopens, Ashley points out, since concerns about the safety of large groups may continue for some time. Having projects for patrons to take home, “rather than having one huge program with high attendance,” she says, will allow the library to limit the number of patrons in one place.

Similar concerns are on the mind of Bob Abbey, adult services librarian at Forest Grove (Oreg.) City Library (FGCL). Before the pandemic, FGCL hosted an array of adult programming, including a baking demonstration that drew nearly 50 attendees. While the library is closed, Abbey is focusing on maintaining a healthy social media presence and on heightening community awareness of library resources.

And when the library reopens, he says, its programming will probably look different than before: “The days of packing a lot of people into a room are probably, at least for the foreseeable future, over.” Post-pandemic, in order to provide an opportunity for patrons to come together while still ensuring public safety, libraries may have to consider limiting program attendance—and redefining a program’s success.

“We tend to focus a lot on getting people in the door, because that’s something we can measure,” Abbey points out. “But I think we’re going to have to start shifting our focus away from numbers and focus more on the quality of the experience.”

A version of this article was originally published in The Scoop blog on March 31, 2020.

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