[Michlib-l] FOL Question During COVID-19
Harmony Crocker
hcrocker at brandonlibrary.org
Thu Jul 30 13:14:39 EDT 2020
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the great responses! I've compiled the list of responses
(see below) and attached them to this email. :)
We are not accepting donations of materials from anyone until further
notice. The Friends are running an online fundraiser. We are not allowing
the Friends or any volunteers to work in the building. We stopped selling
donated items. We decided to give them away for free. If people want to
donate cash, we have a container for it on the shelf near the desk. We are
not accepting cash for payment for anything.
[image: image.png]
No to all of your questions. So far nothing…so far….
[image: image.png]
We are not currently accepting donations nor are we selling books. And we
are not allowing volunteers of any kind to work in the library.
[image: image.png]
We are accepting donations – but are being more picky than normal. We are a
Class IV library in northern Michigan.
- We go out to cars to examine the books before they come into the
building.
- If they pass inspection, they go into quarantine. We have a
quarantine area in our storage room for donations. They get labeled the
same as our books. We are currently on a 3 day quarantine, and are
considering a 4 day.
- Our Friends are coming in one at a time – they have a schedule –
to process the donations and get them shelved. This is working well and
makes distancing very easy.
- The booksale room is open and books are available to purchase,
same as the library books are available to checkout.
We are having friends in the building. They are required to do all the
staff training to be in the building, misymptoms before coming on site and
only a few of them are coming in - (FOL members are not encouraged to come
in at the same time.) We are accepting limited amounts of donations, and
one of our friends is willing to pick up large donations so we forward
folks to him. We are NOT currently selling anything (as we're only open
for appointments at this moment).
[image: image.png]
We’re open to the public, but we're not letting FOL volunteers work, and
we're not accepting donations. We're not selling donations either because
we've decided not to accept any cash for the time being.
We have closed our FOL book sale room. However, we have been accepting
donations. The donations are received (outside) from 10-2 on Tuesdays and
Thursdays only. We have a cart that they can be placed on. Then we
quarantine the books in our shed for several days, after which they are
sorted (keep or thrift books). They are then provided free of charge on a
table or cart outside the library. That way people without a card have
access, and there's browsing available without having to come into the
library. It has worked out really well, although it hasn't generated any
funds. We have NOT had volunteers back in the building yet due to capacity
and visit time limits.
Our Friends have a used book store in our lower level. They have decided
they do not want to open it to the public even when we go back to letting
people in. (We were doing appointments but then a staff member became ill
and we went back to curbside only for at least two weeks.) They also do not
want us to accept donations because none of their volunteers want to come
in to sort and shelve the books. It is their primary source of income,
around $11,000 per year, so it's hurting them, and ultimately us. But I let
them decide.
[image: image.png]
We’re not accepting donations of used books or returnable bottles and cans
at this time. Monetary donations are always appreciated, but we prefer
that they be made online or by check sent through the mail. Staff who
handle monetary donations must immediately wash/sanitize hands. No one but
staff is allowed to enter our building at this time. Volunteers will not
be allowed in the building until the final stage of our reopening plan. We
are not selling anything. The goal is for staff to handle cash as little
as possible, ideally not at all.
[image: image.png]
Our Friends of the Library is and has always been very hands-off regarding
receiving donations. The library usually receives and sorts donations, with
items able to be used in the collection added and the remaining items
sorted into "for sale (by Friends)," "for free," and "recycle." The Friends
active role is in setting up and staffing the semi-annual book sales in
April and October--April was of course canceled; I suspect October may be
as well.
We are still receiving donations on their behalf, but we're running out of
room to store books, since we couldn't have the April sale, we completed a
large weeding project while closed, and so many people are trying to
offload books they found while cleaning and organizing their own
collections while in lockdown. So I kind of ask people how many and confirm
they're something that will fall into one of the top three categories. If
they just need to be recycled, we're providing them the contact information
for a local recycling agency where they can freely drop them off.
We still have a standing sale area for used books, which some people are
browsing and we've had a few purchases, but foot traffic is low right now
and with so many people having recently cleaned out their collection
they're not going to be in a hurry to refill that space they freed up.
Everything
we accept is quarantined before being sorted (by me) and either used, sold,
or put out for free.
[image: image.png]
Our library isn't currently open to the public, so no FOL members are
allowed in the building and we aren't selling any items right now either.
Our FOL group has a trailer that they have in our parking lot and they have
volunteers there during certain times to unlock the trailer to accept
donations. People have to put their own donations in the trailer and FOL
volunteers can't help them to minimize exposing anyone to
contaminated items. I think the books stay in the trailer until it's full,
so they are in "quarantine" until they are unloaded at a later date.
[image: image.png]
We only have one big book sale each year during our community's festival,
which has been canceled this year. For right now, we're not accepting
donations as we don't want to overrun our limited staff, volunteers, and
storage space. We hope to open it back up in a few months with a potential
book sale event in the fall.
[image: image.png]
We’re not taking any FOL donations and our bookstore is not open.
[image: image.png]
We are accepting book donations for FOL sale. Our FOL group has not met
since the end of January. They are due to have a meeting in August. The
annual book sale is in October, so that will be the big discussion for the
next meeting, when, how, what will it look like if it happens. Our
donations come in and are set in a quarantine area for a time. They are
then sorted and boxed to take to a storage location. We have a staff person
who is our FOL representative who takes care of the donations. She has done
this task for years and is very good at it. We do currently sell donated
items after they have been quarantined.
Our FOL were very excited to get donations because so many people were
cleaning out and so many of our patrons were dying to give us donations
that we decided to accept donations. Our Friends are planning an outside,
under a tent, booksale for September as long as there's no spike in cases.
We are in Region 6 and staged as Stage 5 so we can have large outside
gatherings.
[image: image.png]
We are not accepting donations, but patrons sometimes put them in our
outdoor dropbox. We quarantine them like everything else. I have allowed
two Friends board members to come to the library about once a week for a
couple of hours to sort and scan donations that were piling up
pre-pandemic. They come in the morning on days when there are less staff in
the building. They work in the back by themselves with no other staff
around and they wear masks. We check them in for symptoms screening when
they arrive. We are not currently selling donations.
[image: image.png]
We have just started officially taking donations again. Of course, there
were always a few people that dropped things in our return box or left a
box by the back door. Anyway, we now have 3 appointment times each day
M-TH and 2 on Friday. Patrons are supposed to sign up but I know we've had
some people just show up (or drop in the return bin). I'm pretty sure that
at least one lady lied about signing up but we're trying to keep it
manageable. After they sign up for a time slot and it arrives, they pull
up where we do Curbside, ring the bell, and someone brings a cart out for
them to unload their items. The items are tagged with a date, rolled back
to near the Friends Room, and until the new guidelines came out last week,
were being held 3 days (now recommending 4). I don't know if the FOL are
sticking to that but they have the dates for their reference. They
typically hold 2 book sales per month October through June and then have a
massive sale in August in conjunction with the annual Melonfest but of
course, that isn't happening this year. They've decided to rent a big
storage unit at a nearby climate-controlled facility with the hopes of
having a big sale in the spring if things are better.
We also have two bookshelves in our lobby that hold paperback books
that the Friends sell. Typically, they're available anytime the library is
open but they have suspended sales on them too. We have 3-4 Friends that
are working the book room (sorting, deciding what to keep, etc.) They were
trained along with the rest of the staff on new safety protocols, health
screening, etc. I often see 2 of them in the library at a time but that is
their choice.
I happened to be at a different library last week and they ARE selling
things from their Friends booth. They had a drop box for the money so it's
an honor system. I actually bought a book so I'm guessing that it might be
a positive thing to have items available if you can minimize transactions
right now. Of course, you'd potentially have to deal with making change
but there are some transactions happening in our library anyway (copies,
fees for lost/damaged items, etc.).
Thanks again!
*Harmony Crocker*
*Public Services Manager*
*Circulation Manager*
*FOL Liaison*
*Brandon Township Public Library*
*304 South Street*
*Ortonville, MI 48462*
*248.627.1471*
*ENGAGE • EDUCATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER*
On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:59 PM Harmony Crocker <hcrocker at brandonlibrary.org>
wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a couple of questions in regards to what other libraries are doing
> with their FOL groups and donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
>
> - Are you currently accepting FOL donations? If so how are you doing
> it to keep staff and FOL volunteers safe?
> - Are you letting FOL volunteers work in the library? Do you restrict
> them to a certain area or amount of time in the building?
> - Are you currently selling donated items?
>
> Any help is appreciated, thanks!
>
> *Harmony Crocker*
> *Public Services Manager*
> *Circulation Manager*
> *FOL Liaison*
> *Brandon Township Public Library*
> *304 South Street*
> *Ortonville, MI 48462*
> *248.627.1471*
> *ENGAGE • EDUCATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER*
>
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