By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Wood County District Library is another step closer to pre-pandemic normal.
Masks are now recommended, not required.
Library Director Michael Penrod speaking after Monday’s trustees meeting said once the county removed the mask mandate in its buildings, dropping the requirement in the library became inevitable.
“Enforcement was becoming difficult,” he said.
Schools are not requiring masks on buses, and the CDC has said mask mandates are not needed once a county is at a medium risk of transmission. Also, more people are vaccinated and there is better treatment for those who do contract COVID-19.
Still any patron or employee is “welcomed and encouraged” to wear a mask if they so choose.
Penrod said the library was 99 percent back to pre-pandemic service.
After the summer reading program is concluded, the meeting room will be available for rental.
However, the atrium will not be available for rental for an extended period, and it will be used sparingly even for library events. The Library Foundations’ major fundraiser Novel Night will be held in the Veterans Building in City Park in July.
The atrium will be used for the presentation on the 2021 Caldecott-winning picture book “We Are Water Protectors” on April 2. The author Carole Lindstrom will be on hand to talk about the book while the illustrator Michaela Goade will appear virtually from her home in Alaska.
[RELATED: ‘We Are Water Protectors’ creators to present at Wood County library]
The limited use of the atrium is not related to pandemic precautions.
“I need that floor space for collections,” Penrod said. Moving the material on display in the atrium is very time consuming.
Foot traffic in the building is growing but still not to pre-pandemic levels.
Circulation in 2021 is up 15 percent over 2020, but still off 15-20 percent from 2019.
Programs, Penrod said, drive circulation, and those are still not at full steam.
The library is resolving another circulation problem, getting books in and out through interlibrary loan.
The State Library has ended its contract with the existing courier service and will return to using the previous contractor. “This is a good migration. We’re going back to a company that we know can deliver a high quality service and in the interim we’re going to tell people ‘if you need a book, come to the library and we will get it for you one way or another.’ We will try to meet that need.”
The transition at the state level is expected to take until April or May. In the meantime, the eight independent library districts in the county as well as the McComb library have banded together to form their own system to share books.
The problems at the state level started last summer, after the State Library system and the state Department of Administrative Services switched courier services. A request for proposals for the service was put out for the service earlier last year. STAT Courier received the contract over the existing vendor Priority Dispatch.
Problems sprang up almost immediately. Service improved some before deteriorating again. “That company could not provide the services they were contracted for, so that contract has been canceled by the state library,” Penrod said.
Priority Dispatch will now be the courier.
Penrod said about a third of new books the library gets go out to other libraries on interlibrary loan. Another third goes out to local patrons waiting for titles. While the rest are shelved in the new books section in the library.
The library would have books stacked up all over if those books weren’t circulating either locally or through interlibrary loan, he said.
Penrod also noted that the Children’s Place is taking advantage of having a prime view of the construction site next door where the former senior center is coming down and the new city building will be built.
The room behind the desk overlooks the site and has been equipped with Tonka trucks, hard hats, books, blocks, diagrams of famous buildings around the world, and other construction-themed materials.
