SLA Roundtable on Reopening Concerns

The international information professional association Special Libraries Association (SLA) recently organized a virtual roundtable What Will Reopening Look Like? Planning, Procedures, and Solutions for Reopening Libraries.

Professionals from government, law, manufacturing, construction, academia, and a variety of other work environments took part.

There was also a chat discussion:

"Chat comments included the following:

• Library management has created shared documents for each of us to contribute our concerns we have about reopening—everything from hours of operation to what should we do if someone asks to borrow a pen.
• We’re discussing letting visitors handle materials but going to set those materials aside for 3 days, which means we’re going to need to limit how much we can pull off the shelves for them.
• Is anyone else considering moving to closed stacks? We are strongly leaning to doing that.
• We have a new cohort of researchers arriving in September, and I’m thinking of at least starting off with 'curbside' pickup and then slowly allowing browsing (by appointment?).
• I like the idea of delivery but may pose increased risk to exposure while delivering items to patrons in the building."