Library Chat: Library providing a valuable service

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on April 16, 2020.

The library has made the difficult decision to temporarily lay off 23 of our 36 staff.  We are closed to the public and we just don’t have work for staff who normally check books in and out, return books to the shelves and help customers at our service desks.  This was necessary but painful and we are really looking forward to bringing these people back when we are able to open the building to the public again.

The library building is closed but the library is not cancelled. You can phone in an order and schedule a pickup.  Everything that is returned to us gets cleaned and quarantined and we maintain social distancing when you come to pick up your materials so this service is quite safe.

We have lots of online content including e-books, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers. We have excellent online courses and our staff have been creating online programs. We’ve added $10,000 in new e-content. Make that $11,000 – we received a generous donation from a couple who said our online offerings are a “lifesaver.”

This donation really touched me. It was encouraging to have the value of the library upheld by citizens. Responding to the pandemic has been very difficult. Some say the library and other agencies should close completely, get rid of all staff and give up on doing anything that is not “essential.”

Staff and public safety are the critical priority above all others, but I don’t think cancelling everything is best.  Some level of library service is essential in any meaningful sense of the word. I have heard from many library patrons like our generous donors who rely on us for their emotional and mental well being. People are stressed, bored, anxious and sometimes strapped for cash.  They need safe options for entertainment, research, learning, personal growth and diversion.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

We do need to beware of COVID-19, but we also need to beware of panic and overreaction. The Great Depression of the 1930s was a downward spiral of people unemployed due to lack of consumer demand followed by reduction of consumer demand due to unemployment. 

Life must go on, the economy must function, and we all must safely do our part.  The remaining staff at the library are working hard providing valued services and putting their earnings back into the community.  We will carefully continue on this course as long as it is safe and useful to do so.

Ken Feser is the chief librarian at the Medicine Hat Public Library

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