To our 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 Healthy at Work for educational and cultural guidelines, 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.
Although we still encourage you to use our curbside pick-up for materials, we have decided to open our building to limited traffic on Monday, June 22nd.
It is limited traffic because we are required to limit the number of patrons in the library at any one time. The hours of the library will look a little different for the summer.
The library hours will be Monday, Wednesday & Friday: 10 am – 3 pm.
However, you can still use our curbside services Monday – Friday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm.
What you need to know:
We ask you to return all items to the outside drop box. We will be unable to take return items at the desk. We are quarantining returns for 7 days and will need to do this for the foreseeable future.
In addition, we are practicing Social Distancing. Please try to remain 6 feet away between you, other patrons, and library employees. At this time we will not be able to offer computer help or help setting up new electronic devices. Remember that these are all temporary measures to keep us safe.
We also encourage patrons that can wear a face mask to do so before entering the library. All library staff members are required to wear a mask to follow the Healthy at Work guidelines and we ask that you do your part to help keep each other healthy and safe. We also ask that you use hand sanitizer upon entering the building. We will have hand sanitizing areas throughout the building.
We would like our first hour of operation from 10:00 am to 11:00 am to be visiting hours dedicated to seniors and other patrons at higher risk for the coronavirus, including pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems. We are asking that everyone do their best to respect this designated time for those who are considered high risk, but we understand that some of you may need to use that hour due to other needs.
Our reopening philosophy is “Grab and Go” to keep the number of patrons in the building at one time to a minimum to prevent the spread of germs and to continue social distancing. The use of tables and chairs will be unavailable at this time along with browsing magazines and newspapers. We ask that you limit your stay to 30 minutes or less for now.
Computer use will be available, but we will only have access to 9 public computers at this time. We have to clean between each person, so we apologize ahead of time for those who will have to wait. We will have 30-minute sessions on the computer, no more than 1-hour total per day. We ask that you have only one person at the computer.
All in person programs are suspended until further notice. Also, we are unable to offer meeting room space for the foreseeable future. Our meeting room and study room spaces are being used to social distance our computers so we can offer more computer access. We are really missing our programs, but will be continuing on with our Summer Learning program and other virtual programming at this time.
Thank you again for your patience, understanding, and continued support as we try to return to a more normal way of conducting our library services.
Tony Jones
Henry County Public Library Director