A Year At The Library During Covid-19
A Year At The Library During Covid-19
On March 17, 2020, the Putnam County Public Library closed its doors temporarily due to Covid-19. Since then, 535,000+ people have died in the United States due to Covid-19, with millions infected. Sixty of our community members have passed due to Covid-19 in the past year. The library mourns their loss, as well as the loss of every person due to Covid-19.
As we reflect on the past year, we hold the families, friends, and loved ones of those who have been affected by Covid-19 in our thoughts.
AMBER COMPTON, ADULT REFERENCE & ADULT PROGRAMS MANAGER
“This year has been challenging in so many ways and has also given us the opportunity to grow. Because of social distancing, staff learned how to use screen viewing services to help patrons on the computer. This has been great for different skill levels and allowed us to teach people new skills.
In the Adult area upstairs we have been working on a passion project called the Community Corner. We felt distant from our patrons who come in to see us sometimes daily and we wanted to create a space where we can provide information and resources. The Community Corner houses our Racial Equity collection and binders full of information, not just on Covid-19, but financial aid resources, tax filing, and more. The area was made through collaboration and we hope to see it grow in the future.
Finally, through Covid, we have been very grateful to be actively helping our community register for the vaccine. It is always a great feeling to see someone walk away with a book you know they are going to be immersed in, it’s another to know you’ve given someone peace of mind about their health and safety. It’s been a year of trials–from moving furniture to constant cleaning. We are so thankful to our patrons who have taken precautions to keep us and others safe and we look forward to a time when we can see their smiling faces again.”
MATT MCCLELLAND, LIBRARY DIRECTOR
“In a year when it seems like people can’t agree on much of anything, we can all agree that the last year has been one that we would all like to put in the rearview. However, I can say that despite all of the challenges, the library staff can take pride in how we have kept trying to improve things despite all that has gone on around us. It appears that the time is coming when everyone will be comfortable coming to the library again. When they do, I like to think that they will be impressed at many of the new services and improvements that we have made over the last year.”
CONNI NEISWINGER, CIRCULATION MANAGER
“This past year has been strange and challenging for all of us. Around this time last year, I was brainstorming ways for the library to continue to serve our patrons as we worked from home. Our director and the rest of the staff worked out a plan for the library to reopen safely. From working out ways to implement curbside pickup to how to install the barriers needed at the circulation desk, we all had to get creative and think outside the box.
This sense of teamwork and community have been some of my favorite things about this past year. Our team here at the library really came together and came up with some creative solutions and I’m so proud of that.
One of my favorite parts of working at the library is interacting with our patrons. The most difficult part of the past year for me has been the distance we all must keep from each other. I am a hugger, I like to give our youngest patrons stickers and bookmarks. All of those things are on hold right now. When the library reopened last summer I was glad to get back to my patrons.
Like everyone else, I can’t wait to get back to some sense of normalcy. The past year has been amazingly challenging and I have learned so much! The most important thing I learned is that I have an awesome job and work with amazing people!”
ANTHONY BARGER, ARCHIVIST
“It appears that we are getting close to the pandemic ending and approaching a new normal. As this surreal time is coming to an end, I find myself reflecting on the past year. Like everyone, the Archives Department has gone through some difficult times but has also used this period to create new ways to interact and assist patrons. Most notable of all of our losses was the passing of Ed Dewes of Covid. Ed was one of the library’s longest-serving volunteers. He started volunteering around 25 years ago and he is missed.
A difficulty for us, in the beginning, was not being able to directly interact with our patrons. A trait of the department is that we interact a lot with our patrons. It ranges from in-depth discussions about what collections to research to simple storytelling. In a department such as ours, patrons expect to see and handle the original documents. This came to a near full stop with the pandemic. Still, I admit that we have done a fine job of making sure that people got what they needed or wanted. In fact, our patrons stepped up by being both patient and going outside their comfort zone by embracing technology that previously they would not consider using.
Throughout the past year, we used our time well. Most people do not know this, but we have a room that contains thousands and thousands of documents that tell the history of our county.
Monthly Newsletter: January 2021
Calendar
Winter Reading Club
The 2021 Winter Reading Club will run from January 1-February 28. Children and teens can pick up a Bingo challenge in the Imagination Portal or access them online. Earn a bingo to win a cool prize! Adults can pick up their reading sheet at the circulation desk on the main level of the library or access them online.
We will accept the following methods of returning your Bingo Sheet or Reading Challenge to the library:
- Return your physical copy to the Imagination Portal if you are under 18, or to the Circulation Desk if you are 18+.
- If you are an adult, please email [email protected] with your answers for the adult Reading Challenge.
- If you are a child, please email [email protected] and provide them with your information.
Prizes may be picked up during the challenge or at your convenience after the challenge has ended.
Featured Services
Curbside Service
The Putnam County Public Library is excited to offer Curbside Services @ PCPL. Simply place your items on hold and we’ll deliver them to your vehicle!
Free Public Wi-Fi
The library has free public Wi-Fi for your connectivity needs. Our Wi-Fi extends to the library parking lot, allowing access after hours.
Library of Things
We love books at the library, but sometimes books alone don’t do the job. With generous funding from the Dr. James Elrod fund at the Hendricks County Community Foundation (HCCF), the library has purchased materials for a “Library of Things”.
The Library of Things is a collection of items that are unconventional to libraries but may be of use to the community. These items can include kitchen appliances, tools, crafting supplies, outdoor games, board games, and a wide array of other items. These items are loanable to the community just like any other library material.
Featured Resource
With Cypress Resume, you can effortlessly create a professional resume in minutes! Its easy-to-use design assures you won’t spend hours trying to perfect your document — all the hard work is done for you! Simply plug in your basic information (as much or as little as you like), and we create a perfectly formatted document to help you land that dream job.
You need a library card to access this resource.
Carry the Library in Your Pocket
Carry the Library in Your Pocket
Digital Resources for Children
OVERDRIVE/LIBBY
Thousands of eBooks, audiobooks, and videos available with your Library card. Enjoy them immediately—or transfer to your eReader or mobile device with the OverDrive and Libby apps.
You need a library card to access this resource.
KANOPY KIDS
Kanopy Kids is full of kid-friendly clips, films, and videos to keep your little ones entertained by educational content! Check out Kanopy Kids today!
You need a library card to access this resource.
Click here for Kanopy Kids
TUMBLEBOOKS
A collection of animated, talking picture books, suited for elementary school children. Each story comes with puzzles and games geared to ensure reading comprehension.
You need a library card to access this resource.
Indie Author Day: November 7, 2020
On November 7, 2020, the Putnam County Public Library will host the 5th annual Indie Author Day. Join us for the talk “Eye for the Weird” by Author Sarah Gerkensmeyer.
Eye for the Weird
How can the strange, the uncanny, and the unordinary help give us more direct access to our characters’ ordinary, human experiences? This presentation, which incorporates a series of interconnected writing exercises, will explore how some “weird” writers like myself work with a careful balance of the ordinary and the unordinary, the real and the surreal, in their fiction. We will look at overt examples of weird writing, such as magical realism, fabulism, and fairy tales. And we will also explore more subtle approaches, such as conducting creative research about unknown topics and discovering a sense of mystery about topics that you are already familiar with. Participants should be both inspired and challenged to discover how injecting a sense of the unknown and the off-kilter—whether to a large degree or only in small doses—might open up the characters in their own writing. I will also share about how growing up in the Midwest helped shape how I view the “weird” in both the landscape that surrounds me and in my own writing.
For more information:
Indie Author Day
Writer Workshop Videos
Sarah Gerkensmeyer’s story collection, What You Are Now Enjoying, was selected by Stewart O’Nan as winner of the 2012 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and chosen as winner of Late Night Library’s Debut-litzer Prize. A Pushcart Prize nominee for both fiction and poetry and a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the Italo Calvino Prize for Fabulist Fiction, Sarah has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Ragdale, Grub Street, SAFTA’s Firefly Farms, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories and poetry have appeared in American Short Fiction, Guernica, The New Guard, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, B O D Y, Hobart, and Cream City Review, among others. Her story “Ramona” was featured in a Huffington Post piece on flash fiction and also selected by Lily Hoang for the 2014 Best of the Net Anthology. Sarah was the 2012-13 Pen Parentis Fellow. She received her MFA in fiction from Cornell University and now lives and writes in her home state of Indiana, where she is a winner of the Indiana Authors Award and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellow.
