It has been a busy week full of announcements here at the Delaware County District Library! If you’ve got a library card with us, you should have received an email with some big news about study rooms, hours, masks and more. If you didn’t get the email, you can hop over to www.delawarelibrary.org to read it in the News & Updates section on our homepage.
June 1 is our unofficial kickoff to summer at DCDL. Since we’ll be closed Monday, May 31, for Memorial Day, it made for a natural reason to roll out some of these new procedures and updates for our patrons.
The new hours will now be consistent throughout the week and weekends. Monday through Thursday branches will be open from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays are open 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and all locations will be closed on Sundays. Our Ostrander Branch Library is also closed on Mondays.
If you haven’t stopped by the Maker Studio inside the Delaware Main Library, you can do that on weekdays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., with special evening hours until 7 p.m. on Mondays.
One of the biggest changes that the coronavirus threw our way was our ability to adequately staff our branches at the amount of time we had in the past. Staff were limited by a number of factors, but most predominantly by childcare and health needs. Now that much of those have stabilized, we’re getting staff back to pre-COVID capacity and our buildings’ open hours can begin to reflect that.
Another big conversation has centered around masks. The Delaware County District Library will continue to follow the public health orders as issued by Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine. That means that masks are currently required inside the library for unvaccinated individuals older than age 2. However, vaccinated individuals may enter unmasked if they so choose. Those orders are set to expire on June 2.
We’ve learned a lot over the past year, and we know that safety, health and cleanliness are top priorities among DCDL patrons. We’ll continue to offer disposable masks for kids and adults at all our entrances, along with hand sanitizer and other safety barriers. Our library cleaners have done a wonderful job keeping our public spaces clean and ready for all to use.
Finally, one of our most popular features, study rooms, will be available for the public to use beginning June 1. Make a reservation for June 1 or later with a library staff member now, or wait until June 1 and make the reservation on your own using the DCDL website or app.
While you’re on the app or website, give these recent releases in the “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise” genre a look.
• “The Puzzle Solver: A Scientist’s Desperate Quest to Cure the Illness That Stole His Son” by Tracie White with Ronald W. Davis, PhD. The inspiring story of Stanford University geneticist Ronald W. Davis’s work to understand and treat the debilitating disease myalgic encephalomyelitis (also called chronic fatigue syndrome) after his son’s diagnosis. ME/CFS has often been dismissed as a fake or psychosomatic condition, but the work of Dr. Davis and others has led to important new discoveries about its biological origins and implications.
• “What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons From a Body in Revolt” by Tessa Miller. This candid account of learning to live with chronic illness chronicles how author Tessa Miller had to radically alter her perspective and expectations after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in her early adulthood. Don’t miss a chapter full of advice for people who have someone with a chronic illness in their life on how best to provide support and accommodations.
• “Parenting While Working from Home: A Monthly Guide to Help Parents” by Shari Medini and Karissa Tunis. A well-timed and approachable guide to balancing the competing responsibilities of work, childcare, and schooling when all three take place at home. Potentially overwhelming topics are broken down into digestible pieces that include practical steps to help you get started.
• “The Price you Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map” by Ron Lieber. Planning for the ever-increasing costs of higher education and how things got so expensive to begin with, this is “a revealing and useful guide” to funding a college education. Ron Lieber is the author of The Opposite of Spoiled and writes the column “Your Money” for the New York Times.
