CSLA Blog: CALIBK12 Topic Roundup - Making Books Available To Students during Remote Learning

Question:

Hello!

Long time listener, first time caller.

I work at at private school in San Mateo and the school is doing everything it can to have in person school at some point this year - perhaps even to start the school year - San Mateo County is not on the watch list as of this writing.

The plans - as I understand it so far - includes having no students go to the library. We are a small pre-k through 8th grade school (about 250 students).

I was thinking I would like to try to make library books available to the students in some capacity. I would love any ideas/suggestions/thoughts on how to do this, limits, frequency, etc. I will worry about getting books back and disinfecting them, but everything else is on the table. Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks,

Jeff Paulson

Answers:

Hi all,

We all want to provide physical books to our communities who crave comfort - for the spirit, the eyes, and the brain during this pandemic. Many public libraries have created "curbside services." Perhaps school libraries will be able to offer the same? However, we all need to stay informed about the type of print materials handled. Here's what I've shared with our district's risk management team.

Apparently, high gloss pages, present in magazines or children's board books will need to be quarantined for a longer period than other materials, up to 4 days. - REALM Test 2 Report

For most other library materials, After one day of attenuation, there was no recoverable virus (below LOD) for the hardback book cover, the paperback book cover, or the DVD case. By day three, all five tested material surfaces resulted in no recoverable virus.” - REALM Test 1 Report

Regina Powers

District Librarian

Anaheim Union High School District

Hi Jeff,

Our school district is doing distance learning however my plan for hybrid (when we get there) is to take a more 'embedded' approach where I visited classrooms (if possible) - maybe taking one cart full of books and have the students let me know what they like, make suggestions and then checking out items using the library's wireless laptop. Then they just have to return them into a box and they can sit for three or four days.

We have Destiny LMS - my plan is to get this accessible via the school website so students can put a hold on books they like (perhaps up to five each) and I could deliver to the classroom after three days - perhaps in a plastic or paper bag.

I was also recently in a small bookstore where they had 'Lucky Dip' book bags for romance - I was thinking this could possibly be done at the school - perhaps 3 books of a particular genre, write the barcode numbers on the side and then you just have to issue the items and hand over the bag. ?

Ruth Relf
Librarian
Dexter Middle School
Whittier City School District

Hello!

Many HS TLs in our district are planning on allowing students to place holds on the library books they’d like. From there, we will have pick up hours each day. HTH!

Connie Joyce

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