May COVID-19 Work Chronicles

     Work life DC (during corona) is weird but has slowly become a habit. I got into work on Monday and Friday while teleworking from home Tuesday-Thursday. On the days I work from home, I answer chat reference questions, monitor our seven Facebook pages, do professional development by watching webinars and answer my work emails New changes that have occurred DC include having tons of teleconference meetings by my boss to boost staff morale and plan for the future. I mentioned in a previous posts that we're planning to have our summer reading program online.

     For the online summer reading program, since this is the first time we're doing this, staff will have to be trained on how to used the new online platform. In addition, since a secondary component of the summer reading program is entertainment, we are having to work with the performers we already hired to see if they can come to the library and have their performance recorded. Luckily, most of the performers have been willing to work with the library to make the performances happen. The biggest issue with this from the performer perspective is how long is the library going to have their video available of our social media channels since they want to keep the element of surprise when it comes to their performance. I suggested having the video available online from the time it is recorded until the end of the reading program which will be in early August but we shall see how this goes.

     Other future projects my boss wants staff to do is create content for a library newsletter, create content for our new YouTube channel, investigate establishing a book delivery service, establish ways to perform outreach during this crisis. So far, library staff have sent handwritten cards to patrons that regularly visit the library which has been well received. At our last staff telemeeting, she suggested that she may have staff call patrons to check on them. I feel really uncomfortable about doing this considering my impression is that when a person signs up for a library card, they trust that the will not be called by the library unless it is for library business. Library staff aren't social workers and as such, staff should not be put into a position where that may be told things that they can't do anything about or hear distressing information. I am proud of myself for communicating my concerns to my boss via email. 

     As time DC passes, I am feeling more and more burnt out of the public library environment because I feel like my director is oblivious to the low staff morale. Since my director is part of several Facebook groups for library directors and follows several library Facebook pages, as she's seeing what bigger libraries are doing and wants us to be doing all the things in an effort to so have "essential" the library is and instead of all the staff picking in so the whole library can succeed, this ends up falling on the shoulders of one of two people.

COVID-19 Work Chronicles Week 3 & Returning To Telework

     This week at work has been busy. My boss has had me revamp the look of our library website homepage.If you want to see my work in action, visit www.kingscountylibrary.org. Other website changes included creating online form to apply for a library card, request reference assistance., established virtual chat service, and an online application to request a book from our Zip Books program.

    The main reason my boss is pressing so hard for new online services is because this week (April 19-April 25) is National Library Week. Originally, we assumed the library was going to be open and was planning to hold fine forgiveness week. Given the current state of the world, we've decided to promote our new online services by posting to our website and social media during the upcoming week.

  My boss informed library staff was on Friday that we're going to have to start teleworking again in an effort to promote social distancing and reduce the total number of staff inside the library at any one given time.I'm planning to be in the library Monday and Friday then work from home Tuesday-Thursday. At least I'm fortunate enough to has a job that makes it easy for me to work from home by providing remote access to my work desktop and files from home so I can update the library's website, answer chat reference and watch webinars to meet professional development requirements.

COVID-19 Work Chronicles Week 2 & Birthday In the Age of COVID-19

  This week was the second full week being back to working inside the library building. The week start of well in that I was notified that after several years of being the project lead for the library's Career Online High School program and having 7 people not complete the program, we've had our first person finish! Although we are currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have let the student know that once we reopen, we will hold a graduation ceremony for her as soon as it's acceptable to do so. We also have two other students who are well on their way to finishing their respective programs so it's an exciting time in the library.

  Tuesday was an uneventful day filled with doing webinars and ordering books and DVD.The most memorable webinar I watched was presented by the California State Library regarding preventing and treating compassion fatigue with self-care.

  Wednesday was special because it was my 41st birthday and ironically, this was alaos the first day that everyone in the county where I work is required to wear masks when at work. Here's a photo of me wearing a surgical mask while at work.

   After getting home from work, hubby made me dinner of my favorite cuisine which is Asian food.

     Once dinner was done, hubby gave me birthday gifts of two journals since he knows how much I love to write down my feelings in a journal. In addition, he also got me a copy of "Well-Read Black Girl" which is a book I recently really enjoyed reading and mentioned how much I loved this book.  

COVID-19 Work Chronicles Week 1

  Yesterday marked my first full week back at to work inside my library building. Although the library is closed to the public, all library staff are permitted to come into work since we're viewed as "essential" employees. The library was closed to the public and staff last week but as I mentioned in a previous blog post after meeting with my boss on Saturday, all staff were instructed to return to work on Monday morning. For the foreseeable future, I will be working Monday-Friday during the day until we reopen to the public after which I will return to working on the occasional Saturday.

     When I arrived at work Monday morning, I initially, thought that having all staff (seven people) in the library at the same time could work as long as staff practiced social distancing. Not to long after my first workday started, I realized that I would have to protect myself from possibly catching COVID by doing my own social distancing from co-workers.

     The second workday back, I could hear two co-workers sneezing and coughing in their respective work cubicles. Although they didn't cough or sneeze near me, I began to worry about catching whatever they have. My anxiety level increase even more this day when both of the aforementioned co-workers left work early for doctor appointments. By the end of my second workday, my nerves were shot.

     By my third workday, my husband strongly recommended that I wear a surgical mask to work since co-workers were not practicing social distancing, are coughing and sneezing. Here's a surgical mask selfie.

   
   As a part of part of my work duties, everyone now has to complete an hour of staff development training a day.To this end, I attended two virtual meetings this week: The Art of Gathering in the Time of COVID-19 presented by the California Center of the Book. This webinar was informative in that the presenters discussed how libraries will need to look for unconventional ways to met in a time when meetings are discouraged due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

     The second webinar meeting I attended focused on creating a virtual summer reading challenge using Beanstack program presented by ZooBean. This webinar is important since I'm 100% sure that this year's annual summer reading program is going to have to be restructured and things are going to have to be scraped such as paper summer reading logs, giving out physical prizes to kids and the biggest change will be regarding the weekly programs we usually have. Considering that large social gatherings are breeding grounds for COVID-19, we may have to look at alternative ways for the library to engage the community in addition to what I currently do through the library's website and social media.