Submitted by the Ohio County Public Library
To our Valued Library Patrons:
We cannot express enough gratitude for the way you have supported us over the last few months. You have been so understanding of the new way we have been providing materials and services to you. We hope we have been able to meet your expectations. We have missed you all greatly!
With the release of the Healthy at Work guidelines for educational and cultural establishments, we have again reevaluated what is the best course of action we can take for the health and safety of our patrons and employees, while trying to return to a more normal way of providing services. We want to remind you that all guidelines are temporary and subject to change and if the state orders, we may have to make further changes.
Although we still encourage you to use our curbside pick-up for materials, we have decided to reopen our physical library building to limited traffic Monday, June 15. It is limited traffic because we are required to limit the number of patrons in the library at any one time. The hours will also look a little different. We will be continuing to do curbside and highly encourage you to utilize this service whenever possible.
Library hours will be:
- Monday & Tuesday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
- Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Curbside hours will be:
- Monday & Tuesday 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 10:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
What you need to know:
We ask you to return all items to the outside drop box or through curbside pickup. We will be unable to take return items at the inside desks. We are quarantining returns for 10 days and will need to do this for the foreseeable future.
We are working with the Healthy at Work guidelines to determine safe numbers. This may require that we ask you to wait before entering the building if we are at capacity. In addition, we are practicing Social Distancing. Please try to maintain six feet distance between you, other patrons, and library employees. At this time, we will not be able to offer computer help or to help with setting up a new electronic device. Remember these are all temporary measures to keep us all safe.
We also suggest patrons over the age of five wear a face mask when entering the building. We can provide one if necessary. All library staff members are required to wear a mask when serving patrons to follow the Healthy at Work guidelines. We ask that you do your part to help keep each other healthy and safe. We also ask that you use hand sanitizer after entering the building. We will have hand-sanitizing areas readily available.
We would like our first hour to be dedicated to seniors and other patrons at higher risk for the coronavirus, including pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems. We are simply asking that everyone do their best to respect this designated time for those who are considered high risk.
Our reopening philosophy is “Grab and Go” as we would like to keep the number of patrons in the building at one time to a minimum to prevent the spread of germs and continue social distancing. We ask that you limit your stay to one hour or less until circumstances change.
Computer use will be available, but we can only use some of our computers, based on social distancing guidelines. We have to clean between each patron, so we apologize ahead of time for those who will have to wait. We will have one-hour sessions on the computer, per person, per day. We ask that you have only one person at the computer.
All programs are suspended until further notice. Also, we are unable to offer meeting room space at this time. We are really missing our programs, but will be continuing with our virtual stories and “take and make” children’s craft bags.
Thank you again for your patience, understanding, and continued support as we try to return to a more normal way of conducting library services.
Melanie Warga, Ohio County Public Library Director