Popular Perceptions of Libraries and COVID19

When I was an undergraduate, I once took a course called “Reality and Illusion” that focused on different perceptions of reality seen through the lens of Spanish literature. In more than thirty years as a librarian, I have experienced a major disconnect between the reality of library usage and the illusion that so many have of what libraries are and how they are used.

There is a stereotype of libraries that all librarians have dealt with throughout their careers and that fails to take into account the massive changes that have occurred and continue to occur in libraries.

According to the movie and television industry, the popular and mainstream press, the advertising industry, and social media, libraries are places visited by few people and where there are bun-wearing, spinster women walking around telling the few people who venture inside the library to be quiet.  Those of you old enough to have watched the film classic It’s A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, may remember the fate that befell Mary, the wife of George Bailey: when his wish was granted that he never existed, Mary became a frightened, timid librarian (complete with hair pulled back in a bun). Clearly, this was a fate to be avoided at all costs – even in 1946 America. There are countless other examples of this popular misconception that can be found everywhere today.  Even in academia, there are those who believe (and say to me with some regularity) that we don’t need the library anymore because “everything is online.”  These incorrect perceptions seem to be perpetuated and validated by people who have not been inside a public or academic library in a very long time, if at all.

The reality (pre-COVID19) is very different at most academic and public libraries in the United States. Libraries have become the hubs of their communities, bustling with activity and engagement. And while we still preserve some quiet zones for the focused scholar, researcher or individual seeking a place for quiet reading and reflection, our libraries as a whole are anything but quiet. At FAU, the main library on the campus at Boca Raton, the Wimberly Library, is a 164,000 square foot building that last year received more than 950,000 visits.

At class changing times, we have long lines of students trying to come in and get out of the building, as this picture shared last fall by one of our students on the Libraries’ Twitter account illustrates.

In the six months before we closed our facilities in response to COVID 19, we had over 482,000 visits (for a student body of 30,000). Many of the people who come in to the building stay for hours, using one of our computer labs or open spaces, studying and hanging out with their friends and fellow students for hours between classes.

Our newly redesigned spaces, where students can reconfigure the space to meet their immediate needs, show how today’s students have been accustomed to working. They do everything together. And they do it in close proximity to their peers.

They find ways to be close to one another and work together even in spaces that were not designed for that purpose.

Students creating their own group-study space on the floor in another part of Wimberly

Since March 19, 2020 the faculty and staff of the FAU Libraries have been working remotely and perfecting new ways of serving FAU’s students, faculty, and community almost entirely without face-to-face interaction. I have described some of that effort in a previous posting entitled Library Redux.  While some of what we have learned to do effectively in this world of safe social distancing will carry over and enable us to improve our services once we are back, we miss our community and we are all looking forward to the day when we will be able to reopen our doors and interact with our community face-to-face.

But this reopening must be done safely.

The popular stereotype of libraries as empty, quiet zones could now threaten the safety of our public and our staff as we look to reopen. In a recent report produced by researchers from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security entitled Public Health Principles for a Phased Reopening During COVID-19: Guidance for Governors, the authors provide recommendations on when it is safe to reopen different types of spaces. On p. 8 of the report, the authors discuss the need for risk assessment, noting: “Risk assessments should be integrated into the decisions around reopening. Risk assessments are formalized processes to evaluate risks and hazards. Assessing the risks of easing social distancing measures and restarting parts of the economy requires a measurement of the likelihood of increased transmission and the consequences of that transmission. Likelihood in this case means the probability that reopening a business, school, or other organization where people congregate will cause significantly increased transmission. Consequence is the impact that increased transmission could have on individuals or communities if a business, school, or other organization reopens or eases social distancing measures.”

(The authors of the above-referenced report have just changed their recommendation after hearing from so many librarians about the false assumptions on which they initially based their recommendation. More on this later.)

The authors of this report provide charts throughout to summarize for governors and their staffs what risk there is for reopening different types of facilities and operations. While on p. 14 they provide a chart that characterizes institutions of higher education as high risk: High for Contact Intensity, High for Number of Contacts, and High for Modification Potential, the very next page provides a chart characterizing libraries (as a community gathering space) as low risk: Low for Contact Intensity, Low for Number of Contacts, and Medium for Modification Potential. The one caveat they offer in their two-sentence explanation of this particular chart is that “The risk in these spaces is highly dependent on the size of the population they serve and the size of the space.” They then cite the CDC and a document from the Baltimore County Public Library for possible mitigation resources. In this section, the authors do not explain or justify their characterization of libraries as low risk. I can only wonder if this characterization is based at all on the popular – and erroneous – illusion that libraries are quiet places inhabited primarily by librarians who spend their time shushing the few patrons who venture inside.

(The authors of the above-referenced report have just changed their recommendation after hearing from so many librarians about the false assumptions on which they initially based their recommendation. More on this later.)

While there is much that is useful in this guide produced by Johns Hopkins, I am hoping that government officials will look beyond popular perceptions and will instead look to the people who work in or manage different types of spaces in order to uncover the reality of the use of these spaces for their community and the associated risks for reopening.

We are looking forward to seeing you all again and getting back to normal, when we can do so safely. Let’s hope that is soon.

Library Redux

With the Florida Board of Governors’ decision in mid March to move all instruction in the State University System online for the spring semester, the FAU Libraries have been operating almost entirely remotely since March 19. We are providing limited in-person services to check out laptops and other computer equipment to students in need and to provide curbside pickup of items from our print collection in the main library in Boca Raton for faculty.

Working remotely means that each of our homes is doubling as our office. For some of us who live alone, that has meant taking over a table or a room and resigning ourselves to having contact with other people only through the phone or the computer. For others of us with children, it has meant sharing our new office spaces with our children’s new home schooling space or with their play space. Like the rest of the world, dealing with the pandemic has meant a complete readjustment in how we live our lives and carry out our work.

Working remotely has not lessened our commitment to or connection with the students and faculty of FAU and our local community. In the past few weeks, library faculty and staff have interacted with hundreds of students and faculty over email, by phone, via chat, text, or online meeting formats to assist them with their research, their instruction, or their questions about their future.  For example, during the first two weeks of working remotely, staff of the Interlibrary Loan department set up numerous new accounts for students and faculty, processed over 230 borrowing requests, lent over 940 digital articles or book chapters, scanned over 70 items from our physical collections for other SUS Libraries, hospitals, and federal and state agencies, and provided curbside delivery of dozens of items from our print book collection. 

In the first two weeks of working remotely, our newly created LibGuide on Home Schooling was viewed almost 1100 times. Our newly created LibGuide on COVID-19 Resources has also been exceptionally popular. Our dozens of video tutorials continue to be very popular and our Lib2Go page has guided hundreds of our students and faculty to the wide array of resources and services we have available to them. This week, we will be adding virtual office hours to make it possible for our students and faculty to connect online with a live person and have a video chat.

Showing our commitment to the broader University mission and our support for our students, twenty-seven library faculty and staff are volunteering five or more hours a week to take part in the University’s initiative to reach out by phone to most of our current students. Through these conversations, we let our students know that FAU cares and callers are trained to direct students to whatever assistance they need for tutoring, finances, advising, or just coping with the human effects of the pandemic.

The new environment has sparked our creativity and caused us to find new ways to engage with our students and our community. We have held bingo games on social media for students based on library services. For Poetry Month, we are hosting a Spoken Word video contest for students. While we might have started these efforts to address the physical isolation we are all experiencing, some of our efforts will likely continue even after we are back in our physical spaces and having face-to-face interactions once again. A prime example of this change is coming from the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. Accustomed to offering hands-on workshops for students and the community, the Jaffe has branched out into live video streaming events that are also recorded on their site for viewing at a later time. They have just completed episode 2 of Book Arts 101, featuring the Director of the Jaffe Center, John Cutrone, talking about book arts and showing some prime examples. The community response to the first two episodes has made it clear that this is a format that works and that will enable the Jaffe Center to reach a broader group of people who want to learn about the amazing, quirky world of book arts.

While the stay-at-home directives and the temporary closure of the libraries have kept us from enjoying our physical spaces and seeing each other face-to-face, the technology continues to make it possible for us to find new ways to work and play together. The Rubin and Cindy Gruber Sandbox, which was due to open on March 30, is currently sitting vacant, waiting for students to start their journey into the world of artificial intelligence. But, not to be controlled by our current reality, the co-directors of the Gruber Sandbox are developing a virtual version of the Gruber Sandbox to enable our students to enter the space and begin to explore some of its capabilities virtually.  Still in the early development stages, this virtual reality version of the Gruber Sandbox will likely continue even after we are able to enter the physical space.

The greatest irony for me in this time of physical isolation is how close it has brought us in other ways. The faculty and staff of the FAU Libraries are stretching their understanding of connection and service and are demonstrating every day that we are always here for our community.

Be well, stay home, stay safe until we can meet in person once again. In the meantime, visit our website, our social media pages, and reach out to us to discover all the ways that we can help enrich your research, study, and personal growth.