Pivoting to online avenues for engaging the public during the pandemic, many archives, libraries and museums launched digital collecting projects. Digital collections enable cultural heritage organizations to gather primary source material about the pandemic in real time, even while buildings are closed, while also giving the community an outlet to express their individual perspectives on this unusual time. 

Local history archives that are part of public library systems tend to have limited staff and resources compared to independent museums. As a librarian at one such archive, I hope my experience with launching a COVID-19 digital collection portal might be useful to others. 

After participating in the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s project “Share Your Story: Documenting COVID-19 in Virginia,” it occurred to me that our local history archive had a unique role to play in collecting digital material specific to our county. We had an opportunity to capture specifics meaningful to residents: local restaurants delivering take-out food via robot, neighborhood car parades honoring essential employees and graduates, the airport looking barren on what would normally have been a bustling travel day. These images and experiences will be of interest to future generations studying the impact of the pandemic on our county. 

In early April, I proposed to colleagues the idea of using a Google Form to collect stories and digital materials from our community while the building was closed. The deed of gift information and thank-you note could be embedded in the form, negating the need for separate documents. The form would allow typed responses as well as uploaded files: images, video or audio. All agreed, so I drafted the form and it was quickly launched via our website and social media pages and promoted via notices to local media outlets.

The level of interest in the project was greater than anticipated. Within two months there was more than one television segment on the story, as well as coverage in print and online. Items in the digital collection now number in the hundreds and include stories, drawings, photographs, video clips and links to podcasts and blogs. Contributors range from children to senior citizens, teachers to small business owners. By gathering diverse narratives from all demographics within the county, we preserve a fuller record of what has occurred for future generations.

Below are a few tips based on my experience with this project.

Leave it creative and open-ended. People will surprise you with their ingenuity. In a difficult situation, it’s important that people be able to respond in a way that is meaningful to them, whether by typing a few sentences, uploading images, or sharing a link to their blog. By enabling all of these options on the form, we received a maximum variety of contributions. 

Plan in advance for publicity. It’s a good idea to have, if not an official press release, at least a written description of the project ready to draw upon when asked. Often there is short notice to prepare for interviews or articles. Be sure to credit contributors who have elected to receive credit if the material they submitted is shared. (We also have a “keep me anonymous” option on the form.)

Be aware of legal and ethical issues. The Society of American Archivists offers a resource kit: Documenting in Times of Crisis. It’s thorough, covering everything from emotional support to budget, including sample templates and forms. When launching a project quickly in response to crisis, it’s not always possible to foresee all possible issues that could arise, but at least be prepared to sequester sensitive contributions (such as a journal that names other people) until staff can determine how best to handle such items.

Be flexible. The need to adapt as the project develops is likely. As community interest in our project grew, we decided to drop the original June 10 deadline and collect indefinitely. Community experiences in April may be very different from those in June or July, as the situation evolves. We also hadn’t anticipated needing to share items with the public until a later date, but due to interest in the project we began putting samples on our Friends of the Virginia Room Library Facebook page.

Next Steps

The next step is to make the majority of the collection digitally browse-able by the public. Beyond that, I hope to eventually connect our local COVID-19 collection with those of other towns, cities and states around the country for future researchers. Currently we’re investigating Biblioboard Creator for these purposes. Other options for tools to collect, catalog, and enable public access to a digital collection can be found in New York University Library’s Guide to Digital Humanities Tools & Software. For a recent video introducing several different approaches to this type of project, see Collecting in Crisis: Responsive Collecting in a Digital Age by the Maryland Historical Society and partner organizations.

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed in this article are my own and not meant to reflect those of my employer or any other individual or organization.

The post A Covid-19 Digital Archive first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

My library shut our doors to the public on March 17, 2020 but we did not close. Within 48 hours of locking our doors, we began offering curbside pickup. This continued for about two weeks at which point we ended curbside pickup and began offering home delivery. Delivery services lasted for roughly three weeks until we ended that service and once again began curbside. Four days later, on May 1, we ended curbside pickup and reopened our doors to the public at 25% of our typical capacity, the first day our governor allowed us to do so. We were not directed to reopen by the state. When our city leadership were asked why we were reopening so soon amid so much uncertainty, we were told only, “the library needs to reopen.”

We are a single branch library system with roughly 25 full-time employees serving a city of about 80,000. Throughout this chaotic experience, many of our staff were not able to work from home. Our employees were stressed not only by the COVID-19 pandemic but by the ever-changing nature of the services that we were creating on the fly, only to then end those services and be directed to create another new service from scratch. As you can imagine, heads are (and have been) spinning. Many of our best staff members are feeling angry, isolated, and resigned. Some feel unsafe at work yet trapped in their jobs as they watch friends and colleagues fall victim to layoffs and furloughs. How do I know so much about my coworkers’ feelings? I began facilitating voluntary lunch hour support groups for our staff in late March. These groups continue twice a week.

Library leadership need to have realistic expectations for the challenges facing employees and patrons, alike. As libraries across the country move towards reopening, I am increasingly concerned about staff burnout. If my experience is any indication, our institutions can expect employees to have understandable safety concerns regarding covid-19. Compounding this worry are the ongoing protests of police brutality against black Americans. Our country is destabilizing in unprecedented ways across public health, economic, social, and justice systems, all at the same time.

Due to all these events, each of us — but particularly people of color – are currently experiencing an ongoing, complex trauma. Patron or staff, when we experience trauma, there are number of consequences: cognitive challenges, difficulty sleeping, and dysregulated emotions to name only a few. When we again allow large numbers of patrons into our buildings, we can expect confrontations – either between patron and staff or among patrons — in our libraries to escalate in both frequency and severity as nerves fray and patience wanes.

Sadly, we can also expect that the needs of our patrons will far exceed the service capacity of not only our libraries but also the social service providers in our communities. Case managers, emergency shelters, and domestic violence advocates had wait lists before the pandemic hit and the economy tanked. These services will now be further under-resourced and overwhelmed. Patrons who were vulnerable before the pandemic will now be even more vulnerable. Folks who previously lived reasonably stable lives will now be facing increased instability.

Unfortunately, I do not have any easy answers to these difficulties. However, I do feel strongly that the magical thinking offered by many in leadership positions is not helpful. Covid-19 will not disappear miraculously. Our economy will not reopen overnight. The trauma of our personal and collective experiences will have repercussions far beyond this current crisis. Staff members will not feel safe completing tasks that used to be commonplace, no matter the precautions taken. Library leadership should not expect staff to be able to operate in the same ways that they have done so in the past; to expect them do so is harmful to the well-being of employees.

As public servants, we need to be honest with ourselves regarding the challenges that we and our communities are facing and to steel ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. To be blunt, we are all in for a very difficult time for a very long time. I believe that realistic expectations will serve to protect our mental and emotional well-being as we move forward.

Now more than ever, our libraries must prioritize not only the physical safety of our staff members but also their mental health. I see this as both compassionate workplace policy and a customer service issue. As libraries and our community partners attempt to do more with less, as stability in our lives decreases, we must do what we can to take care of one another so that our libraries may then take care of our patrons. A staff member stressed to their maximum will struggle to care for themselves, let alone a patron.

Please do what you can to offer some small semblances of control and stability to your staff and coworkers. Prioritize trainings with useful, quickly attainable learning objectives over obligatory or bureaucratic webinars. When possible, encourage staff who wish to do so to work from home. Ask staff what was and was not working prior to the pandemic; if a program or service has not worked well historically, stop offering it. If staff members offer ideas, critiques, or complaints, listen to understand; in many workplaces it takes great courage to speak up in this way. Don’t interrupt one another. Carve out time at work for folks to talk if they want to do so or to have quiet time alone if they prefer. When classes again become available, consider training in Mental Health First Aid. When reopening, contemplate using a short, recorded greeting for your main phone line with information on business hours, services currently provided, and other basic information; this will save staff the monotony and frustration of answering the same questions repeatedly throughout the day. I believe that libraries are essential; however, as so many of our resources have become available online, library leadership should consider whether – and to what extent — the physical handling of books is essential to libraries in this moment.

I have largely stopped asking people, “How are you?” These days, it seems a ridiculous question to me. We are all struggling. I now prefer to ask, “You hanging in there?” In other words, “Are you coping well enough to get through the day?” If someone says they are not, I regard that as an invitation to connect. Personally, I have found connecting with friends, family, and colleagues to be highly protective of my own mental health during this crisis. Please remember to connect with one another as we travel this difficult road together.

I hope you are all hanging in there.

The post Prioritizing Staff Mental Health When Reopening first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

In Albany, New York, the capital of the state with the highest infection rate, Albany Public Library (APL) has a six-stage plan in place for its reopening. A guest lecturer at SUNY Albany’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity (CEHC), Library Director Scott Jarzombek is uniquely equipped to lead in a time of crisis. By early March, APL already had its closure plan in place, which enabled administrators additional time to plan virtual operations and begin arranging reopening procedures.

The work libraries have done to prove we’re accessible far beyond the four walls of our buildings is demonstrably paying off during this crisis. During the closure, APL staff are staying busy by providing online programming and expanding access to WiFi to bridge the city’s digital divide. “Reopening is not flipping a switch,” Jarzombek explains, “It will be slowly adjusting a dial, and I say adjusting because there will be times we may need to go back to the previous setting. We turn it up and down, slowly, based on data and expertise.”

In a time of overwhelming uncertainty, Jarzombek emphasizes the need to view plans to reopen as works in progress, “We have learned that the situation is fluid and that any plan you make needs to be flexible. There is no quick return to normal because, for some time, normal will not be static. Nothing is set in stone; what life looks like after the final phase is still a question mark. I do think libraries will, at some point in the future, look like they did in February, but only if we, both our organizations and society as a whole, do this right.”

In San Francisco, one of the first cities to issue a shelter-in-place order, all 28 branches of the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) are closed indefinitely and staff are on paid furlough. As employees of the City and County of San Francisco, many library workers are being activated on a regular basis as Disaster Service Workers (DSWs) to perform a variety of functions – food pantry workers, contact tracing, cataloging of government documents, bilingual community outreach, among other assignments. Like APL, SFPL will take an incremental, phased approach to resumption of library services, with preliminary plans focusing on larger branches and equity zones, with an eye towards safety in the form of sneeze guards at public service desks and limited grab & go-style service to begin. “Our institutions will endure,” assures City Librarian Michael Lambert, “but library services will be different.”

Meanwhile, administrators at small libraries face big questions about how to enforce social distancing in spaces designed to be cozy and intimate. Jennifer Bruneau, Director of Massachusetts’ Boylston Public Library, says negotiating physical space is the biggest obstacle in their reopening process. “Before we shut down, we were bursting at the seams with patrons – our door count was increasing, our circulations were way up, and we were posting record attendance numbers at our programs every month.  Our library was recently renovated to maximize the use of space, however it’s still very small. Keeping my staff safe, as well as protecting my community from further spread of COVID-19, is my top priority.  Figuring out how to do that while resuming library services that are so badly needed in our area is going to be a  huge obstacle.”

Bookmobiles may be looking at longer closures than their brick-and-mortar counterparts, simply because mobile outreach and social distancing are fundamentally incompatible. “The very nature of traveling from one point in the community to another makes us a potential vector,” observes Chris Long, Manager of the Community Bookmobile for Frederick County (MD) Libraries, “so it’s going to be tricky.”

Public libraries of all kinds are facing unexpected challenges. Here are some questions for library leaders to consider while building plans to reopen.

When is the best time to reopen?
As we’ve seen from the debate over lifting restrictions on business operations, there is no prevailing consensus on the best time to reopen for business, and there are a multitude of rapidly developing factors at play. Just as most libraries look to local government partners and school districts for cues on weather-related closings, decisions surrounding reopening will necessarily be informed by the actions of other local organizations. Following the guidance of public health officials during this time is paramount, for the safety of staff and the public.

One option is to open library facilities for one essential service on a trial basis. Seattle Public Library, for example, is opening a limited number of its bathrooms for public use while the rest of its services remain on hold. This will enable the library to employ a skeleton crew of facilities and cleaning staff, while encouraging social distancing and still providing an essential service to the public. Opening up for select services, one at a time, also allows libraries to assess what works and what doesn’t in a more controlled environment.

How should services be modified to address the ongoing threat of infection?
If your biggest priority is reopening with minimal modifications to your normal service model, the best way to do that while encouraging social distancing may be to control the number of patrons in the library at a time. Retailers have done this especially well, so it is useful to look to supermarkets and other essential businesses for ideas. Walmart has reduced its capacity to roughly 20%, and other retailers have implemented social distancing markers, shopper limits, and other measures to encourage safe behavior in public.

Circulating materials can contribute to viral transmission because viral particles can survive on surfaces for a range of several hours. CDC epidemiologist David Berendes recommends leaving returned materials untouched for 24 hours, which will allow ample time for the virus to die and reduce the need to disinfect individual books. A one-day quarantine on materials means that loan periods should not be impacted substantially. Staff should continue to use best practices for cleaning and disinfecting circulating materials as a general precaution.

One of the hardest aspects of reopening in the age of social distancing will be the need to discourage patrons and staff from congregating unnecessarily. This may seem counterintuitive, as libraries are traditionally the place to go to kill some time with a good book, but the present situation calls for a temporary shift to a more transactional model. Consider instituting a temporary policy to control loitering, with plans to reassess as the situation develops.

What staffing considerations need to be made as we resume service?Libraries have to prioritize staff and public safety for the foreseeable future. This will undoubtedly impact how libraries are staffed and services provided.

In addition, budget challenges loom on the horizon. Many libraries rely on local government bodies for their funding. With revenues down, those libraries are bracing for future budget cuts and may have to make tough decisions about staffing. Already, some libraries have had to lay off valuable staff, and managers are faced with the task of reopening facilities with a significantly depleted workforce, at a time when it’s almost guaranteed that staff will need to take more sick leave than usual. Some library systems are considering consolidating staff around branches where the need is greatest for the time being, until their regular workforce can be replenished.

Building skill redundancy into your workforce is a great way to ensure resilience in times of crisis. While budget constraints can make it difficult to hire many employees with similar skillsets, making a point to assemble a team with complementary as well as overlapping skills is crucial to avoid fallout when one or more team members is absent or laid off. Additionally, using volunteer workers to supplement the work of paid employees can be useful when anticipating a rise in employee absences due to sick leave.

Make sure staff understand that social distancing practices apply to them as well as the public. Staff should not congregate in the library outside of their scheduled shift. Keeping track of which staff are in the building and when will help facilitate contact tracing in the event a staff member is infected. Some administrators are considering instituting temperature checks as an additional precaution.

What will happen to virtual services after the closure?
Creative programmers from public libraries across the country have developed innovative ways to keep their communities connected while staying apart. From Hip Hop DJ Livestreams to Quaranzines, from online storytimes to dial-a-story to virtual homework help, libraries are expanding remote access to their services and expertise. Acquisitions budgets for physical collections have been reallocated to beef up digital offerings as holds on e-books skyrocket. Remote access to online databases has expanded research capabilities beyond the library walls. Moving forward, libraries will need to weigh several factors in deciding whether to sustain these virtual offerings after regular service resumes.

• Consider the ways in which offering services virtually will expand access for some patron populations, who may not otherwise have access.
• Alternatively, consider the ways in which replacing an in-person service entirely with a virtual alternative could reduce access for patrons who are unable or prefer not to access the library digitally.
• Expanding digital access to some library services will come at an additional cost. Consider whether the library can sustain this additional expense in the long term, or is it only feasible as a temporary measure.
• Some services can easily be offered digitally, such as recording or livestreaming public programs, while others will require substantial staff time (which also constitutes an additional expense).

The Bottom Line
Above all, we must not lose sight of our priorities as a profession, and even with modified service structures, we can still uphold our core values of lifelong learning, equitable information access, and strength in community. In order to do this, we need to acknowledge some difficult new realities:

• Our workforce will inevitably be impacted by this crisis. Keeping library staff members safe will be an ongoing challenge that we must prioritize in order to minimize that impact.
• Students have lost valuable months of in-person schooling. Public libraries must continue to support students, educators, and parents, as we strive to prevent what R. David Lankes describes as “the summer slide [becoming] the pandemic avalanche.”
• A national crisis replete with mass deaths, skyrocketing unemployment, and long-term isolation of individuals in their homes represents a collective trauma. It may be useful to revisit your library’s behavioral policies, keeping in mind that both staff and patrons will be operating at higher stress levels for a time. Learn more about the mental health consequences of COVID-19 and physical distancing here.
• For the time being, libraries will need to strike a delicate balance between the free and open spaces we idealize and the social distancing practices we must enforce. As Jarzombek states, “Leadership will have to reassure everyone that the organization’s goal is to get back to the public library that we all knew and loved, but in the meantime, in order to continue to provide resources in the safest way possible, libraries will be more restrictive than they ever have been. I believe this will create an in-depth philosophical debate in the profession, and we will struggle balancing being responsible and adhering to our core values.“

Additional Resources:
Register here for DEMCO’s May 12 webinar, “COVID-19: Safety Tips for Reopening Your Library”

Learn about the IMLS-led project to develop guidelines for safe reopening and collections management in libraries and cultural institutions here.

The post Libraries Contemplate Re-Opening first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The benefits of regular mindfulness practice are relevant personally and professionally as we continue to live in the upheaval wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are enduring a collective trauma. What does this mean for us physically, physiologically, and mentally? It means that we are operating more from our limbic system – the part of our brain responsible for survival. 

Whether at work or in home life or virtually chatting with friends and family members, we may find that we don’t feel quite like ourselves right now. We may obsessively plan for the future or try to predict what will happen next. We may experience increased physical pain or have trouble sleeping. We may be more easily irritable, set off by seemingly small things we would typically manage with ease. We may feel unable to shake off the blanket of exhaustion. These are all examples of what can happen when we are living in extreme stress. 

The human brain does not like uncertainty or unpredictability because, evolutionarily, such conditions are not conducive to survival. Under stress, our hormone production changes, increasing the amounts of cortisol and adrenaline in our bodies. These hormones come to our aid when we need to react quickly to an immediate danger. But over a sustained period of time, such stress responses meant to keep us safe can negatively impact our physical, emotional, and mental health. 

This is where mindfulness comes in. Will trying one of the practices below immediately transform the experiences of working from home, homeschooling kids, grocery shopping while socially distancing, etc. into a starburst of joy? No. However, by making time to practice being with one object of focus, in the present moment, without reacting to it or trying to change it, we can reduce the hypervigilance of the limbic system and move our body from the overworked stress response into the relaxation response produced by the parasympathetic nervous system. 

These exercises take time to take effect. They must be practiced; we cannot think our way into experiencing the benefits of mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness is not about clearing the mind; thoughts and feelings and sensations and all kinds of distractions will arise because we are human beings with human brains. This is a normal part of practice. Resistance is also normal. It is easy to tell yourself that you don’t have time to practice (even when all your typical things to do are shut down) or that sitting around doing nothing isn’t going to help anything. Remember, though, when you are practicing mindfulness, you are doing something. You are training your brain, much in the same way that physical exercise trains the body. You are training your brain to accept what is, as it is, even if you wish it were different. And that in and of itself can help reduce the negative impacts of extreme stress.

Below are five basic mindfulness practices, with links to freely available guided instructions. 

Breath Meditation. In this practice, the object of awareness is the raw sensation of breathing. It is a great way to begin practicing mindfulness; if we are alive we are breathing and in that way the breath is always available to anchor your practice.

Under Five Minutes: Breathing Meditation from UCLA Health (Also available in Spanish as Meditación Básica) 

Longer Practice: Breathing Meditation by Jack Kornfield from Insight Timer

Body Scan. In this practice, the awareness focuses on physical sensations in the body, often moving through the body from the bottom to the top or vice versa.

Under Five Minutes: Body Scan Meditation from UCLA Health

Longer Practice: The Body Scan from Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams and Danny Penman

Mindful Movement. The physical sensations of the body are the object of awareness also in moving meditation, but rather than noticing those sensations from a still position, you are invited to notice the sensations (and how they change) with movement, such as walking or stretching.

Under Five Minutes: Walking Meditation by Celestine Fedley available from Insight Timer

Longer Practice: Mindful Movement by Deborah Rana from UC San Diego College of Medicine

Sound Meditation. To practice mindfulness of sound, you are invited to let your awareness be open to all that you hear around you. Some sounds may be pleasant; others, less so. Notice these judgements and (just as you do with any other thoughts and feelings that arise in practice), softly let them go. Keep coming back to hearing what you hear, right now.

Under Five Minutes: Body and Sound Meditation from UCLA Health

Longer Practice: Mindfulness of Sound by Imee Contreras from Insight Timer

Loving-Kindness Meditation. A slightly more complex practice, loving-kindness is a process for cultivating compassion for oneself and for others. It is my personal daily practice right now, as I find that I am often harshly judging myself for what I can or cannot do, what I should or should not feel. Lovingkindness helps us acknowledge, not just in our heads but also in our hearts and bodies, that we are all humans, suffering to some degree, and doing our best to take care of ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Under Five Minutes: Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation by Livia Walsh from UC San Diego College of Medicine

Longer Practice: Sending Compassion to the World During the Coronavirus by Kaira Jewel Lingo from Insight Timer

Mindfulness is not a panacea that will make everyone feel better immediately. Nor is it dogma. Think of it as an experiment. Pick a practice, try it for a few days, and notice any impact it has on your life. If it helps, great. If it doesn’t, or if you simply don’t want to try it at this time, let it be. The breath will be there whenever you choose to spend some time noticing it. 

The post Mindfulness in Times of Extreme Stress first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Keep Them Informed

We want our patrons and followers to continue to see us as a source of information, regardless of whether can come to our building. Here are two ways we took our standard in-person programs online.

Twitter Chats Replace Pop-Up Events
When our building is open, we host pop-up events called Civic Lab, which focus on hosting discussions and sharing information about issues facing our community. We’ve translated Civic Lab to Twitter chats, where staff members on Twitter moderate discussions on a specific topic, and share relevant resources for one hour. We use #CivicLabChat, and when sharing resources, we tag creators on Twitter and use pertinent hashtags. Our first #CivicLabChat was called All Genders, and focused on gender identification and pronouns; this was a Civic Lab event previously planned to happen in person in March. We had participants from all over the country participate. Our next #CivicLabChat is about COVID-19 information and misinformation. Here is the link for the #CivicLabChat: All Genders.

Instagram Story Series
We started doing a series of Instagram Stories focused on specific topics that are relevant and of use to our followers. These are loosely based on the Civic Lab model as well, but catered more to Instagram’s slide-based and video-friendly platform. Our first series was about COVID-19, and the second one was about the 2020 Census; a third series that’s in the works will focus on how people can help others in our community during this time. Each series features a mix of slides with text and slides with video, all recorded selfie-style by library staff with their phones or laptops. We’ll often follow video slides with a slide that recaps what was said, since many users watch stories with volume off. These series are saved on our profile’s Story highlights. 

Keep Them Entertained

Many people are inundated with stressful news. We want to give patrons a chance to relax and give their brains a break. 

Spotify Playlists
Music is a great equalizer! We have a lot of music lovers on staff, so the idea to create a playlist of feel good music was a no-brainer. We have a Spotify account that I created a while back, so I created a collaborative playlist, and shared the link with co-workers, who also added songs. Now we, as staff, can listen to it, and I can share it on our social media channels for our followers. Here is the playlist – it’s pretty great!

Instagram Story Templates
We’ve all seen these in some capacity on Instagram. A person posts an Instagram Story that has blank fields, and followers are supposed to take a screenshot, add text above the empty fields, and then share on their stories (ideally tagging the initial creator). This was an idea I’ve had for a while, but had not implemented. Darien Library in Connecticut has done a few, and I thought now was the chance for us to try it. I used a template found on Canva.com (search for “fill in Instagram Story”), added fields for book-related answers, branded it, and shared it in our Instagram Stories. It was a fun way for people to get follower’s minds off of the news, and see what they’re interested in! The template is saved on our profile’s Story highlights.

Online Book Club
Our followers of course love talking about books (and so does our staff). Similar to the library’s Spotify account, I previously set up a Skokie Public Library group on Goodreads, and we now use that as the hub for discussions. Our staff first found 4 books that were available in both eBook and eAudiobook format, and which could be checked out by multiple people at the same time. We then posted polls on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to ask which book people wanted to read; they chose The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King. From there, we decided that the book club would host moderated discussions once a week for one hour, but members could post on our Goodreads page whenever they wish. The book club has more than 20 members, it has increased circulation numbers for the book, and it helps us stay connected with fellow book lovers. Here is our Goodreads group.

Twitter Trivia
Our Digital Collections Librarian created trivia questions based on our digital archives that are shared internally with staff, to give us something fun to do (because we think research is fun!). I thought the questions could serve as perfect content for a Twitter trivia night, which we hosted on a Tuesday night. I used #SkokieTrivia, and posted all questions (10 total) in a single thread. All answers were about Skokie history, and could be found using our digital archives, so it had a nice tie-in to the library’s resources. Here is the Trivia thread.

To make all of these ideas happen, collaboration and communication with co-workers has been crucial. We’re redefining the idea of library programming, teaching each other new technologies, and trying to practice work/life balance at the same time. I have found that creating and sharing a high-level social media calendar with our colleagues has been helpful in getting some semblance of process and priorities. This is a challenging time for libraries, but also an exciting time to try new ideas! Best of luck as you continue to serve your patrons while flattening the curve!

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