Three Rivers library will begin offering curbside service next week

Ten of 12 library employees to return to work Tuesday

This coming week the Three Rivers Public Library will commence phase one of its reopening plan. Beginning Tuesday, June 16, the library will offer curbside pickup service, available Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The Watershed Voice spoke with Interim Director Bobbi Schoon on Friday about the reopening, and according to Schoon, the library’s full catalog of books and other resources will be available on its website, and patrons wishing to borrow items can place a hold online or call for curbside pickup orders. 

Due dates for returns have been extended without fees until June 30. The library itself will remain largely closed except for staff access.

Since the shutdown began, the library’s staff has offered online and home-based programming to the public and will continue to create new programs and keep content available. 

“It’s been interesting because usually what we try to do is get people here, and so a lot of the programs that we relied on before just don’t work virtually,” Schoon said. 

So, the library has adapted. “Part of the beauty of a library program is you come in and I say, ‘here’s everything that you need to make this thing we’re going to make or do this thing, so we’ve had to come at it a different way,” Schoon said. 

“Instead of doing book clubs, because we couldn’t give people books, we’ve been doing book ‘tastings’ so we can still talk about them and we all just share ones that we love. They’ve been really great, as good as a Zoom meeting can be. I still feel that we’ve been able to make connections and serve people in a different way.”

Schoon continued, “We’re excited about the summer reading program because that’s going to give people boxes with all the resources they need and then they’ll know what date, so if you’re going to [participate] you can hop on Zoom along with us, or you can make it at your own leisure. We think that’s going to open up what we can do with them by supplying the things they will need at home.”

Later this summer the library will briefly close again in order to move into its new facility at 88 N. Main St. in downtown Three Rivers. Schoon expects that closure to last about three weeks. 

“Since we’ve been doing the shutdown, we’ve started some of the organizing and other things that we could do [while we are closed],” she said. “A lot of my staff got furloughed during this, so we didn’t get quite as much done as we were hoping to, but we’ve started boxing up and making plans.”

The library is still sorting bids for the move, so it has not set a firm date. 

“We just got the bids in this week, so the (library) board will have to make their decision at their next meeting. We’ll know pretty quickly here what we’re going to do about the actual moving company and that kind of thing, but we don’t have a move-in date quite yet, so we’re still kind of waiting. We’re hoping to hear next week,” Schoon said, “hopefully [the move] will be sometime in July, but we really don’t know quite yet.” 

The book collection will not be packed until the move closure starts, according to Schoon. However, as lent books are returned, there will be a one-week delay before they become available again. 

“There hasn’t been any definitive science released yet about how long COVID could potentially last on books, so the last thing we want to do is take a book in from somebody who is sick and didn’t know it yet and hand it to you,” Schoon said. 

To safely handle returned books, staff will wear masks and gloves. There will be tables for each day of the week that books are returned so they can sit in quarantine before returning to circulation. There will be also be other cleaning and social distancing measures in place. 

Schoon has been in touch with other libraries about pandemic strategies throughout the COVID crisis, and has spoken with the Southwest Michigan Library Cooperative and the Michigan State Library in recent weeks. 

“We’ve had lawyers on to advise us on what the best things are to do. I’ve been hopping on as many of those as I can get on, so we can get as many opinions as possible, because this is kind of a thing we’ve never had to deal with before,” she said. “Most libraries are doing phased reopening. Some them are opening a little bit faster. We’re just choosing a slightly more cautious route, because while we’re excited to get materials back out to people, we want to make sure that we’re not a source of an infection.”

At the start of the pandemic closure, the library had 12 staff. Four employees continued to work throughout the closure, including reduced hours that started on June 1. Eight staff were fully furloughed. Six of the eight furloughed staff will return to work on Monday to prepare for Tuesday’s opening. Schoon said that staff will work reduced hours in order to manage operating costs and offset potential pandemic impacts. “That’s mainly because we’re being told that a lot of our funding is going to be affected for next year, so we’re trying to be cautious on that while we can, so that we’re preparing and not blindsided budget-wise,” Schoon said.

Schoon said it isn’t clear how COVID-19 might affect libraries in the long term but the Three Rivers staff is preparing for multiple possibilities.

“There’s a potential that we won’t get state aid money next year. It’s one of the things on the chopping block to try to make up for the COVID relief that they’ve been doing, but of course the libraries are fighting and saying, ‘no, that’s vital, we need to still be here for people more than ever, they need access to computers and books and information, and because some people are job searching.’ So it’s one of those things that we won’t know until it happens. We’re trying to be cautious and aware, but we’re not panicking at this point.”

In the time Schoon has served as interim director, in addition to overseeing the library’s pandemic response, she has overseen a substantial part of the construction and planning for the new location. Schoon became the library’s assistant director and young adult librarian in 2017, but almost immediately took the position of interim director when then Director Debra Greenacre stepped down. Schoon kept that position for four months, and returned to it again last year when Director Lynn Schofield-Dahl stepped down. 

This time Schoon is working on a masters’ degree in library science so she will be qualified to move into the position full-time and “keep the title.” Overall Schoon is excited for the library’s future, including its move downtown. She spoke excitedly with us about progress at the new location. 

The Watershed Voice will provide follow-up coverage on that project in a future article.

Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.