The Rural We: Margaret Haske
The director of Cornwall Library explains how the library serves its patrons despite being closed by the pandemic.
With a degree in gerontology, Margaret Haske was not someone you’d expect to rise to the position of library director at Cornwall Library in Cornwall, Conn. But living across the street from the building, she became a volunteer and wound us as the director six years ago. The library closed on March 16 due to the pandemic, but this branch as well as some of the other libraries in Litchfield County have been allowing patrons to check out books via email and picking them up curbside. “At first, sitting here in a closed library — it was dark, the weather was cold — it was very distressing,” Haske says. But they soon got suitable programming online and running, as she tells us here.
We had our first online programming meeting on March 27, and we had to come up to speed fast. Our board members were really involved. We had to figure out how to download books for free and make events accessible electronically. The online event schedule has been robust — we had 100 people at one of our Zoom events.
But still, there’s a huge segment of people we weren’t reaching — people who weren’t online or just wanted physical books. We’d been struggling with figuring out curbside service since the beginning. We finally found research on how long a virus can live on books. We’re following the guidelines of the Connecticut state library system and the CDC.
We’ve always been accepting returns. Once a day I bring in the returned books, date them, and then nothing touches them for three days. After three days, we wipe them with disinfectant and shelve them. We’re pretty confident that we’re handling everything safely.
It’s working well. People can search the library catalog to find out what books and movies are available here. (The inter-library loan system is down.) They email us their selection — limited to two items right now — and their phone number. Volunteers and staff pull the books, check them out, and put them in front of the building. Then they slowly disappear during the course of the day. Of course, if people aren’t online, they can call us.
We always have a tremendous number of mysteries going out. Not quite as much demand for nonfiction as usual. We’ve continued to buy books even through this time, so we’re up to date on the new titles.
The library is a big community center, and being part of the community has been wonderful. I enjoy getting to know the people and doing things for them. Of course, being around books and people who love books is the other part that’s terrific.
