Summer greetings from your community library staff. We have truly cherished seeing so many of you the last few weeks as we have reopened slowly but surely. You have our apologies about the various changes in hours — I know it has been important for the libraries to be careful with rolling out the hours to keep everything consistent across the county and take incremental steps so that we don’t have to roll anything back.
As of June 15, the library is open at 100% capacity for five hours per day with what we’re calling Express Services, which is a simple way to say that things aren’t exactly like before, but should be able to do almost anything you would have before inside the library. For the time being, like many public libraries in the Bay Area, Sonoma County Library is still requiring masks indoors for all (but not outside for curbside). Our system is still continuously re-evaluating all of the factors involved with reopening, so keep a lookout for yet more changes on the horizon.
We’re excited about the future, but as for right now, we welcome you to the library for indoor service from 1 to 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Curbside service is available throughout that time as well as from noon to 1 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and from 10 to 11 a.m. Wednesday to Saturday. We’ve also been able to begin accepting returns 24/7, as we had before the pandemic, in our book drop.
Even though coming into the library is fun and educational, we recognize that sometimes Curbside Pickup is a great option. Throughout the year, we’ve thought about how useful this service could’ve been in previous years, and our understanding is that we’ll keep offering it in the future. If you have your pet dog with you, if you don’t have time to help the kids in and out of the car, or if it’s not safe for you to be in an indoor space with others even with masks are three possible reasons but we can think of a lot of others. Please take advantage of our curbside service anytime and we’ll cheerfully bring your items out. If you haven’t yet, we highly recommend you try the Click & Collect function on our Sonoma County Library App for iOS or Android. With this app, you can let us know you’re on your way and when you arrive in the parking lot — and we will bring your items right out without you having to read off any long library card numbers or birth dates. Let us know if you need more information about that.
We hope you have signed up for our Summer Reading program and are dutifully entering your time spent reading in the Beanstack App. Each week in the summer we will be giving out three $25 gift cards to Healdsburg readers — one each for children, teens, and adults. The gift cards are for Healdsburg area businesses and provide a nice incentive to keep reading over the summer. If you would rather not bother with another app, we also have paper logs and you can call or pop by to let us know your reading progress in order to be eligible for the weekly prizes. In addition to reading, we also have online events, such as upcoming author visits from Gabby Rivera (July 10) and Jeff Chang (July 24). Come on by today to pick up some information on our summer programs or visit our online calendar at events.sonomalibrary.org/events.
Many of you have been enjoying the Where The Wild Things Are (WTWTA) Geocaching Game this spring and we’re excited to report that, as of this writing, all 10 of our caches are currently up and running. We’ve had to replace a couple of them because they disappeared, but with the help of local organizations and helpers out there, we have managed to keep the game going. We had originally planned it as a spring game, but given the popularity and the slow rollout of caches, we’re happy to extend this game through the summer. Don’t forget to show us your completed passports for a free book for kids.
Jon Haupt is the branch manager of the Healdsburg Regional Library.
