Jackson County libraries reopen to the public

Jackson County Library Services announced on Monday that all 15 locations have reopened for visitors.

May continue to jackson county libraries reopened today.

The layout of the libraries have been adjusted to allow for social distancing.

During this stage of reopening, library hours will vary by location.

The number of people allowed inside will be limited.

Lounge seating will not be available and some computers will not be available.

You are asked to use self-service stations to borrow materials and minimize contact.

I spoke with the jackson county library today about these changes and what you can expect.

So what should people know before they head back to the library?

What differences are they going to see?

Um, well, we are limiting the number of people who are in the library at any time.

Um, so, uh, they'll notice fewer people, um, but we still have the same friendly staff.

They should be prepared with their library cards or their card number because we are requiring people to use the self check stations, um, just to ensure for social distancing.

Um, at most libraries we already had the, um, holds on self-serve at shells.

Um, but the other ones we did, so we've added those to all the libraries who didn't already use that.

So they will be taking their, um, holes off of their own shelves, um, and checking them out themselves.

Um, and they will notice that some of the seating has been removed.

We want to make sure that everybody has a chance to come in.

And get the materials they want since we are limiting the number of people who can be in at any one time.

Um, so we've removed some furniture, so people will be encouraged to sit and stay for a long time.

Um, and we've also limited that limited the number of computers that are available.

Just to make sure people are distance when they're coming in to use the computers.

So what are there new cleaning procedures?

Certainly a lot of what you're talking about are things that would be normally hands-on will that change.

And if so, what kind of procedures have you folks added to keep everybody safe?

Well, we've already added those because we've had staff inside working and we've been doing the front door surface for several weeks now.

Um, so we do have really increased our disinfecting of staff stations.

So everybody disinfects their station before and after they use it.

Um, staff are required to wear masks.

We are not requiring patrons to wear them, but we're really encouraging them to wear them.

And that we hope that they do.

Um, we have hand sanitizer available for patrons and we have.

Um, disinfecting wipes, um, or other disinfecting products for patrons to use when they're using the self check machines and the computers, um, or our computer, our catalog computer.

When you folks closed down, i know you're suspended.

Some of the fines, given the folks couldn't interact with the library as they normally would.

When does that sort of grace period and, and when, uh, do those fines start piling up again?

So we actually eliminated fines and went, find free, um, a little over a year ago.

So the only fines that people get now are actually just fees for if they never returned a material or something's damaged.

Um, so we have, um, turned