 any personally identifying questions of that nature. To ask a question today, please use the Q&A function within Zoom. You can also use the Zoom raise hand function where we can invite you into the room to ask your question or press star nine if you're joining us from a telephone. We do ask that you introduce yourself before coming into the room and asking your question. So today I wanna welcome Library Director Sharon Cherry to the chat as well as Amherstown Manager, Paul Bachman. It's nice to see you both. So before we launch into Q&A, are there any general updates that you'd like to share? Paul? Yeah, there's a couple of things. One is last week we put out some picnic tables and places to eat on boltwood walk and these are probably about 10 tables there, socially distanced and you can get takeout from any restaurant downtown, take it over there and eat with your family or whoever you're eating with. This week you'll be seeing us doing some adjustments to the public way, for instance, right across from the library at Amherst Coffee, there are two parking spaces in front of Amherst Coffee. We're taking those two parking spaces away and making that a new sidewalk so that Amherst Coffee can put out store tables in front of the shop and along the side of the building so they'll be able to provide table service to people on Amity Street at their location. In addition to that, we'll be lopping off a large section of North Pleasant Street ranging from Main Street down to basically Bistro 63 and many of the restaurants in that stretch will be able to move their tables out into the roadway to be able to provide table service there. We're providing a couple of some space for Antonio's to have some outdoor seating so they can do takeout and people can have their slice of pizza just outside instead of inside like the people often would do at Antonio's. So those are all very positive developments, large credit to our inspection services and to our DPW for making that happen. DPW has been downtown power washing all the sidewalks and doing things like that. And I know I'm talking longer than I normally do but the other thing I wanted to mention is that we have staff up at Puffer's Pond today ironing out some of the details in terms of making sure that Puffer's Pond is able to be open and people can utilize it using, again, socially distancing methods. We will have staff there every day from 10 to six managing Puffer's Pond over for the rest of the summer. And we'll have some information coming out a little bit later this afternoon that kind of spells out best practices up there and just some of the guidelines. So you'll see that coming soon. So thank you for joining us today, Sharon. Do you have any general updates or do you wanna launch into the materials that you prepared first? I just had some thank yous. So I really wanna highlight and I want everybody to know in the community how incredible the relationship is between the library and the folks at Town Hall and all of our Town colleagues. We are so lucky. It's not necessarily like this in all municipalities. And I just want you all to know how much we appreciate that. We do not take you guys for granted. And as far as my staff goes, this gets me really emotional. So much has gone into the planning for today. Today is the big day where returns start happening again. I would love to take the time to name off every single staff member because they've all been so amazing. They've really stepped up to the plate and said, what do you need, Sharon? I'm there. But I wanna call out Amy and Nya, who's been working so hard and has gotten it done and here it is today. George Hicks, who's our facilities manager, he and his crew have done amazing things getting the building ready so that it's safe for the public and for staff. And Hank Allen, our head of IT at the library who also works with Brianna and John and the Town's IT department. Hank has just been so great, you guys. And I really just wanna call those three folks out. Yeah, so Brianna, if you could pull up this little infographic that I've put together just for talking points for people and yeah, so I thought if I gave a quick presentation about what we've got going on starting today and moving through the summer, maybe it would help answer some of the questions beforehand. So on your screen, April and May of 2020. So what have we been doing up until now? I understand, I hear this question all the time and so do the staff. Sharon, why can't we just get back to it? It's not hard to just let us return books and let us check out new books. And I wish that were the case. But so one of the things that we've been having to line up is supplies, PPE and cleaning supplies. And so on your screen, I've put down emergency versus essential. So emergency services, police fire, DPW, they never stopped and so supply companies for bleach and alcohol products and masks and all those things, all of those supplies have been directed towards those departments. It isn't until very recently where libraries have been allowed to start getting that those supplies and equipment. And so we're considered an essential service but many of our supplies were put on back order for a very long time and there are still things we're still waiting for. We've also been working with the town on human resources policies. Our staff were just trained yesterday on some standard office procedures about how to keep themselves safe and their colleagues and the patrons. We have enough masks for staff now and we've got hand sanitizing stations throughout the library. We've got a few wipes minimal. We're gonna be relying on a lot of paper towels and sanitizing solution. And we've been having to do some work on our HVAC system because it's not very friendly. So if you could scroll down Brianna. So a couple of weeks ago, June 1st through the eighth, we've been staff have slowly been going back into the building and what we've been doing is staggering the staffing based on room by room maximum capacities. We do have 12 different departments and while many of the department heads have their own offices, most of our library staff don't. So because of the way the building, the Jones library building in particular is kind of chopped up into these tiny little rooms, we can only allow one staff member to be in all these tiny little rooms. So it just makes it harder to get our work done. We also share a lot of equipment and supplies. We share computers, we share telephones, staplers and pens and pencils and things like that. So it's taken a long time to organize and lay out a logistics flow for staff to be able to do their work. We have a disinfecting regimen now. Bathrooms are assigned to certain staff depending on where they are located throughout the building. So all that is in place now. And here it is, Thursday, June 18th. This is the moment we've all been waiting for, literally. So today we are starting to accept materials returns and they can be from any library. I know that there are some libraries out there that are only accepting returns of their own items, but if you want, bring it all back to the Jones. That's totally fine. And so what we've done is we've set up a system where everything is gonna be quarantined in our Woodbury room. And so in order to minimize staff contact with those items, we're just asking that patrons during the day return the items down in the back in the wood next to the Woodbury room. There is a book drop right in the building. And so people can just put their things there and then walk away. The sidewalk is taped off in case a line forms. So it helps people stay six feet away from one another. Or at night, if you're working during the day or don't wanna return your items until nighttime, you can use that Amity Street exterior book drop. And yeah, so it seems complicated and a pain in the neck and I really do understand that. You don't need to memorize these things. Everything is labeled. So if you want, just go to the library and you'll see that the Amity Street book drop is locked during the day. So just walk down the driveway and stick it in the back of the building. Everything that we receive will be quarantined whether it's from patrons or other libraries, even from staff. We're collecting donations of paper bags, for example. Even those are gonna be quarantined for seven days. We're gonna assume that everything has the virus. We cannot afford either in time or supplies to disinfect every item. So we're just gonna use time. Time is free. And we figured that patrons have waited this long to get their items another seven days, I think we'll be okay. Just so that there's peace of mind there. So what's happening is, what does that say patrons? Oh, here's the thing. So you do not have to start returning your stuff now. If you wanna keep it out because those are the only books you have in the house and you wanna wait until you can refresh your supply, it's totally fine. We don't charge overdue fines. So just keep them until later until it's time to check out new things. So then on Monday, June 22nd, just in a few days, that's when we're gonna start distributing the books that are on our hold shelf. So people who placed holds way back in March and the items have been sitting on the library's hold shelf since March. We are going to contact you. You may have already been contacted and we're going to tell people, okay, Monday is the time. You can come and pick it up. And what will happen is, we will check the items out in the building. And then when you are ready, you will let the staff know and we will actually bring it out to you on the front lawn of the library. There's gonna be a table set up underneath a tent and there will be no contact. It'll be in a brown paper bag and we'll just put it on the table and you'll come and pick it up and take it away. What else can I say? As in all cases, you can call or email staff with any questions that you have. You won't be able to ask questions while you are physically at the library because we are kind of, we're exiting the building, dropping the stuff on the table and then going back into the building. So the whole point is to be contactless at this point. But staff are everywhere ready to accept your telephone calls, your emails, however is best to ask your questions, please do. And then right now, our target date is Monday, July 6th for walkup pickup service to resume. So we never stopped allowing our patrons to reserve items to place holds. You could have been doing that the whole time and if you haven't, you can start now. So you can start placing your holds again, either online through the website, you can call us or you can email us and place those holds when the items come in and they're ready for you. We will notify you and we'll set up a time when you can come. I think what's gonna happen is we will be saying, okay, if your last name is A through G, come on Monday, that kind of a thing. We've tried, other libraries have tried scheduling, okay, here's this two-hour slot that you must come during and it's just kind of not working. People have their own schedules, everybody's lives are kind of turned upside down at this point. Yeah, so I think we'll be looking at different periods of time that you can come. So you'll place the holds, we'll let you know, we'll check it out, we'll put it on the table. We will be working with you, Paul, the town manager, we'll be asking for the town manager to reserve those parking spaces directly in front of the library on Amity Street for 14 days and so people can park there, literally park your car, get out, come get your items and then get back into your car and then drive away. We'll try it as an experimental time period and hopefully it'll work beautifully. We wanna make sure there are no traffic jams or accidents or people getting hurt or anything like that. And if it works well, then I will go to town council and ask for those parking spaces to be reserved for us for a longer time period. Front lawn, tent table, not car trunks, that's another piece. So this is why we've called it the walkup pickup service. We don't want people to think that we're actually going to be bringing the bags of your materials and putting them in your trunk. You're gonna have to come up and pick up the items. We will continue with the staggered staffing. Also, reference services are going to continue out of the North Amherst Library. So up until now, people have been asking reference questions and that's been great. Staff have been fielding hundreds of calls every week. The downside is that staff aren't using their own cell phones and so what we'd like to do is use a dedicated library line but because we don't have enough telephones and enough space in the library and the Jones building, we're gonna move that service over to the North Amherst library and conduct reference services from there. The next phase, and we're not sure when this is gonna happen yet. Whoops, yeah, go back up. Yeah, perfect, to be determined. So ever changing, that's my note there. When we finally get to allow patrons into the building, we have no idea when that's gonna be. But what staff are talking about weekly at this point and librarians are talking about it across the state, the need for a one directional loop through the building. Everybody will go in through one building and we're gonna direct you through a loop and then everybody will exit out a different door so that there isn't any close contact. Again, the Jones building has really small rooms and lots of stairwells but they're all skinny. You can't pass by one another in them so we're trying to put this flow together. Computers has been another really important topic because we do not plan on allowing folks to use our desktop computers in the library but what we would love is to be able to check out laptops for people. And there are really fancy schmancy systems you can buy with, it's a system, floor to ceiling, you insert your library card and you actually get to check out a laptop and you take it wherever it is that you take it whether it's in the building or home and then you return it, it goes back into this fancy schmancy holder and then it can be cleaned in time for the next person to use it. When I say fancy schmancy, that means it's expensive so this is something that we're looking into because a lot of people are at home, they don't have wifi, they can't afford the wifi, they can't afford the technology and that's our job, that's what we wanna do so staff are working on that. Also when it's time for patrons to come back into the building, plexiglass dividers at the service desks that those will be installed in times for that, signage, floor labels, you use these stairs to go up and you use these stairs to go down, that kind of a thing. I think- Let's see if there's some questions out there. Please, yeah. All right, just one second while I stop sharing for a moment, I wanna remind the folks who had joined us after I already said this to use the Q and A function in Zoom or raise your hand. If you're on the phone, I see a couple phone callers, press star nine and we can bring you into the room to ask your question. I know there was a lot of material and a lot of updates from the library so if you have any questions. Great information, yeah. Yeah, pop in the room. I don't see any hands or questions in the chat at the moment. We did have some that were previously submitted so I could read some of those or- Let's do that. Some of these things Sharon spoke to already, which was great. We have a question about there, someone's library card being expired. How can I renew this to keep using my digital services? So I told the library staff that I would be doing this interview and I should have warned all of you that I would do my best to represent them. And so this is one of the questions that I'm not sure I'm going to answer correctly. So your library card will absolutely be renewed. Don't worry about it expiring or getting notifications. I thought that everything had been put off until July 1st. I will have to look more into that but I know that if you call the library, Amy certainly she has access to Evergreen and she can update your card. I have to say I got an email and I'm trying to think about who it was at this point from someone in the Jones, asking me if, telling me my card was expired and if they wanted to renew it for me to just reply back and I did and they took care of it. So if you got an email like that, that might be a good way to get your card renewed and I can't remember who it was but I'm going to find out their name. They were great and I recommend doing that if you've gotten an email from Jones Library. It's a simple flip of a switch. Okay, so we have a question here in the chat. Does the plan for a one-way path mean no browsing? So again, that's why I wrote Everchanging on it. Right now when we're having our staff discussions, the thought was no browsing and so you'd come in, you'd let the staff know, we would be located at certain public desks, you'd let us know what we would want and we would have staff go and get the items for you. But it's made, maybe in September or whenever this happens, you know, maybe the virus will be gone and so we can open it wide up again. So that's why I'd like to say our plan right now for the beginning is not to allow browsing but that could change. So one of the things that has come up is a lot of people use the Jones Library in particular but other libraries too is a place to escape from the heat or just to hang out, read a magazine or read a book for a while and that's what's been really missing for a lot of folks who don't have a permanent home or just need to get out of their own home for a while to separate from, just get some space. And that's been a real loss I think for the community and one of the things that we're looking at are as a cooling center or something. So when those really, really difficult hot days are out there, there is a space for people to go in town and it's, the CDC has issued guidelines from what cooling centers need to have in terms of staffing and spacing and all the requirements. So everything is new. So there's new guidelines that just came out actually this morning that I've seen. So I think that that's gonna be a service because I really don't see the library and maybe you can correct me, library being open for patrons to hang out in for a while, Sharon? Yeah, not for a while. Yeah. Another question we have here is, what types of summer kids program will the library have? I love that you asked that question because it's been one of the staff concerns too. Since March, we've been so focused on programming and now here the switchover is in priority over to reserving checkout services and how in the world do we manage checking out checkout services along with the programming? We still have a lot of staff that will be working on programming. So I actually was throwing together a list. I wanna do a shout out for this dial a story that the children's room has put together. So every week it's called a super secret story time. You can call and you can have, your child will be read a story at night or the whole family can be put together. And that phone number is 259-3143. It's awesome. But we will also be doing summer reading programs all summer long and that'll be for kids, teenagers and adults. We're gonna continue with the ukulele strum alongs. That's been going along all the way. Our local author spotlights and our local author interviews once a week. A new author has been interviewed. Those have been so wonderful. It's interesting there have been positive aspects of the pandemic. I don't wanna say that, but we've really, library staff have come up with new ways of using the technology to offer their services that I think will be continuing even once life starts to go back to normal. Munson still has their kids corner programs on Thursdays. Munson is also doing monthly book discussions for adults. Conversation circles, they've been going, they stopped for a little while but then they picked right up doing Zoom and now they have people from literally around the world who are participating in their conversation circles through Zoom. It's been awesome. So those will continue. There's an oral history project that's just beginning where teenagers are going to be interviewing senior citizens from the community. We're in the process of getting our interviewers and our interviewees lined up. So that'll be another summer project that we're excited about. And then one last plug for this life in Amherst mass during the pandemic. If you go onto the library's website, our Special Collections Department is looking for your stories. What has, how has life changed for you during these past three, six months or so? We would love to hear from you, you know, to document it so that people in a hundred, 200 years from now can see what we've been through right now. That's exciting. Yeah, I still have to share my story. I know that we put out that call to action. We'll post it again on the behalf of the Special Collections Department. Yeah, I think it'd be really interesting. They do a great job on looking back into our history just for an example with special collections during our inauguration. And they did a look back to Amherst government. And I just, it's an interesting way to have your voice be included for future generations. One more shout out for this collaboration that we've got going on between Town Hall and the library. And I wanna highlight Cindy Harberson as curator and what she has done with you all, Brianna. So you all have done an incredible job of putting together this Juneteenth program every year. And this year it's online. And so Cindy has been integral to that and she thanks you for that opportunity. And she's put together this incredible slideshow for tomorrow at four o'clock. And I just, I can't wait to see the program. So thank you for that. And speaking of highlights, your hair, Brianna. Didn't, so this is a, I just wanna acknowledge all the students who this is the last day of school before summer. And this was my kiddo's wish for the last day of school was to get turquoise. So this is in solidarity with her and all the parents and teachers who have had an interesting end kids, three months of remote learning. So it's finally summer. Your reverse parade to Fort River. Yes, there was a wonderful reverse parade at Fort River where we got to drive through with the dog in the car and wave at all the teachers. So it was really great. I think it was a nice way to close out the year. Strange year you guys had. It's been a strange year. And I do have extra color, Paul. Scary. We'll say that might be a bet. Yes, I'd have to lose. But yeah, so I think, let me just check the room once more and remind folks we're coming kind of close to our 1230 deadline. So last chance to get your questions in while we have our fabulous library director here, star nine, raise hand or use Q and A. I don't see anything. Oh, I've got a raised hand. So I am going to allow, and I'm just gonna say the last four of your phone number so that we don't share that. 7273, I'm gonna bring you into the room now. Please introduce yourself. Hi, hi, this is Jim Russell from the Republican newspaper. I just wanted to ask Paul something quickly on the North Pleasant Street. And thank you, Sharon, for the update as well. And Brianna, obviously. Hi, Jim. And the hair, obviously. So Paul, just wondering when is that plan to have from Maine to Bistro 63? I wasn't quite sure if I got a date when that is going to happen where the street will actually be closed. And you had mentioned that the DPW was power washing the sidewalks. Will they also be power washing the North Pleasant Street? Yes, they've been power washing sidewalks for the last couple of weeks actually going up and down. And some sidewalks they've been putting steeling on. So we're not closing the road. We're eliminating parking in front of those businesses. Oh, okay, I'm glad I asked. So we'll have more with a parking area. So that would be an extension. Okay, good, good, good. And do you have a date when that's going to begin or is it just already begun? Yeah, so I appreciate you clarifying that because it clearly, so it's important that people know that North Pleasant Street will be open. It'll be narrower because there won't be parking. So we're hoping to get that done this weekend actually. They were moving as quickly as possible. There were applications from the restaurants going to the Board of Licensing Commissioners this afternoon. And if they give the okay, which we anticipate that they will, we'd like to open it tomorrow. Okay, wow, and yeah, it's gonna be a warm night. Yes, yes, okay, good, go. And just the other thing too, and I can double check with Breanna just to get the number of businesses and restaurants also. The, let me just think what was the other thing. Oh, okay, okay, so that will be tomorrow then. I can't remember what the other thing was. Oh, yes, oh, yes, is there any, yeah, this is just the other thing. It just in terms, because it said come up at the council meetings regarding how the determination is made to, in case there's some dispute or disagreement who has how much space. Is that something I'm guessing that'll be fleshed out by tomorrow, I guess. So when a restaurant comes to the building to the inspection services saying they'd like to use some space, they have to give a plan with a layout. If they serve alcohol, they have to put a basically at least a rope around it that somehow sections it off. And then I'm responsible for giving them permission to use the public way. So really all funnels through inspection services and they lay it out. And it won't be just in front of their businesses. Some businesses are saying, we're not going to need our space, give it to my neighbor next door. And so we're sort of allocating it and trying to be in communication really in very close contact with the business improvement district director, who is basically the liaison with a lot of the businesses, reaching out affirmatively saying, do you want space? Do you anticipate needing it? If not, we're going to have someone else use it. Because if we're going to close off the parking spaces, we want people to be able to use it. Right, right, right. Okay, so hopefully by tomorrow, maybe lunchtime or dinner, and by the weekend for sure. That's the plan at this point. Yeah, most of the restaurants are only going to be open in the evening. Okay, so all right. So it gives you a few more hours to, yeah. Okay, well, thank you very much. And thank you, Rhianna. Thank you, Sharer. Bye-bye. Thanks, Jim. Okay, anyone else in the room? We are coming up to our time. So if I don't see any hands or Q&A, I will ask Sharer, if there's any last words you want to say that you didn't get asked or didn't get to go through. No, we're just really, it's so excited to see the community again. So thank you all. All right, last chance, Paul, any parting words? No, we're good. Thank you, Rhianna, for doing this. Thank you, everyone. Happy summer, and we will see you next week. Bye. Take care.