This week at the library; or, Week 5 of the pandemic

This is week 5. I planted a bunch of pansies last week, which the squirrels promptly ripped out (no, they don't eat anything, they just like to pull stuff up in case there's something interesting underneath). We are starting to think about summer reading, although I want to wait to make decisions until May at least - I specifically want to know what the school is doing, whether or not they will be opening again, if there will be summer school, and about summer childcare. There's really only three places in our town that offer this and it will make a big difference to my summer programs what they decide. I did contact the two performers I had hired and both are willing to come do their program and we'll livestream it.

Monday

• Managers' Meeting
• My day to visit the library (and go to the grocery store - I vastly prefer the store in the town where I work, as opposed to the one where I live, so I am combining to cut down trips). I dropped off and sorted books and materials I've finished, picked up books for other programs, checked on the projects left for the aides, put together sewing materials for staff to take if they want to work on making masks, and worked for a couple hours on a weeding project.

Tuesday

• I have to admit I'm a little tired of webinars. I keep reminding myself about the person online whose county mandated they watch 10 hours of professional development every week *shudder* The ALSC ones are ok though.
• Today I worked on my weeding project (I set up the parts I needed at work yesterday) and finished through the Rs in juvenile fiction, did some recording sessions (until the program I was using crashed), and yes, another webinar or two. I'm also working on creating whole storytimes, with a variety of links, on my programming blog that I can then link to on our website and Facebook page.

Wednesday

• Another webinar. Ran errands - gerbils need more shavings. Collection development. More recordings.

Thursday

• Youth Services librarian virtual meeting, mostly discussing how we will handle summer and other ys issues at this time in our respective libraries. Collection development, working on the May/June early literacy calendars.

Friday

• May/June early literacy calendars, marketing meeting, managers' meeting, putting together some long-term projects for staff, and I actually got the June SRP log and the activity calendars AND a letter written up so...

Saturday

• Went into work and printed all the stuff I finished on Friday and collected everything I needed to pack 45 SRP bags for one of my schools on Monday morning.

The governor posted an extension of the safer-at-home order, with changes that affect libraries, on Thursday so we are hard at work dealing with the planning etc. around that. Also, how am I working more when the library is closed? It's craziness.

Webinars

• Honoring Infancy: Growing the garden - nurturing a play and learning space by Mike Rogalla and Tori Ogawa (ALSC)
• Advocacy from A to Z (ALSC)
• Great Books for older children and teens (CBC)

Other Projects

• May-June Early Literacy Calendar
• May-June STEAM activity Calendar
• Virtual storytimes