Providing opportunities for education, entertainment and reading

Text by Mattie Vandiver
Photo by Christopher Little

On June 29, the Norfolk Library was able to open up to the public once again after being closed because of Covid-19 for three months. The library began by offering curbside service. It is now fully open, with slightly limited hours, Monday through Saturday. 

The library is following guidelines recommended by the Connecticut Library Association to prevent the spread of the virus. These include providing a separate entrance and exit, requiring face masks, closing the restroom, placing hand sanitizer throughout the building, providing social distancing signage and placing sneeze guards at the circulation desk. Shared devices such as ukuleles and laptops are not being circulated right now. At this time there are no hard copies of newspapers available, but Norfolk Library patrons can have access to the online New York Times by setting up an account and putting in their library card number. Hard copies of magazines can now be checked out. 

Other precautions include limiting the children’s room to one family at a time, limiting the use of the reference room computers to 30 minutes in one sitting and encouraging people to use the book drop instead of bringing the books inside so that it is easier to maintain a log of when the books were brought in. When books are returned to the library, they are quarantined in a bin for three days and sanitized before being placed back on the shelf. The library staff is also tracking the number of people who come in.

“I believe our primary role at this time, when we can’t really be a community center, is to provide opportunities for education and entertainment, for learning and, of course, for reading,” said Ann Havemeyer, the library’s director. Though currently the library is only open for circulation and cannot have in-person programs, there are many virtual activities being offered. These include author talks, a knitting group, and culinary classes, to name a few. The library’s weekly email newsletter, The Night Owl, lists upcoming programs and the staff’s book picks. Town residents can sign up for programs through the newsletter, on the library website or on the library’s Instagram and Facebook pages. 

This fall, the library is planning a pumpkin parade to bring people to the library and a Halloween spirit to the community. Families will be able to come by the library and pick up a pumpkin, take it home to carve their favorite jack-o’-lantern designs, then bring it back to the library, where it will be placed in a window in the children’s room. LED lights will be placed inside them, so at night, families can walk around the library and view the parade of glowing pumpkins. 

In addition to virtual programs, the library has connected with three e-media platforms. “Our key mission is to get people to read, and by providing not only physical books but e-media platforms, we hope that we can keep people happy,” said Havemeyer. The three platforms are Hoopla, Kanopy and Overdrive. Hoopla offers the most in terms of types of media. It has books, movies, graphic novels, audiobooks and more. Kanopy has more specialized offerings like classic films, documentaries, and foreign films, as well as access to The Great Courses college-level audio and video courses. Overdrive has a wide selection of ebooks and audiobooks.

Art exhibitions have taken on a different form lately due to Covid. Normally, the Norfolk Library Associates’ Art Committee organizes monthly exhibits of an artist’s work, with an opening reception on the first Sunday of the month. When the library closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the exhibitions scheduled for the rest of 2020 had to be postponed. Faced with the prospect of bare walls, Havemeyer reached out to the Norfolk Artists and Friends, who accepted the offer to have shows of members’ work that would rotate every two months. The July-August exhibit displayed the works of around 20 artists, and a video of the show, made by Elias Olsen and narrated by Peter Coffeen, along with a price list, can be found on the library website. The September-October show is on view now. The exhibition videos can also be accessed through the Norfolk Artists and Friends website. 

Though the pandemic has affected every aspect of our lives, the library’s determination to continue to be a center for community—in new and creative ways—helps us to find a little piece of normalcy in these unfamiliar times. All programs, e-media platforms, registration for the Night Owl newsletter, art exhibit videos and price listings can be found on the Norfolk library website, http://www.norfolklibrary.org.