We only have one big book sale each year during our community's festival, which has been canceled this year. For right now, we're not accepting donations as we don't want to overrun our limited staff, volunteers, and storage space. We hope to open it back up in a few months with a potential book sale event in the fall. Cynthia Stanczak, MLS Library Director Albion District Library 501 S. Superior St. Albion, MI 49224 (517) 629-3993 Albion District Library: Transforming Minds, Changing Lives. Proudly serving our community since 1919. Online at www.albionlibrary.org, or find us on Facebook! *My working day may not be your working day. Please do not feel obligated to reply to this email outside of your normal working hours.* On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 2:03 PM Harmony Crocker via Michlib-l < michlib-l@mcls.org> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have a couple of questions in regards to what other libraries are doing with their FOL groups and donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

- Are you currently accepting FOL donations? If so how are you doing it to keep staff and FOL volunteers safe? - Are you letting FOL volunteers work in the library? Do you restrict them to a certain area or amount of time in the building? - Are you currently selling donated items?

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

*Harmony Crocker* *Public Services Manager* *Circulation Manager* *FOL Liaison* *Brandon Township Public Library* *304 South Street* *Ortonville, MI 48462* *248.627.1471* *ENGAGE • EDUCATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER* _______________________________________________ Michlib-l mailing list Michlib-l@mail3.mcls.org https://mail3.mcls.org/mailman/listinfo/michlib-l

Hi everyone, Thanks for all the great responses! I've compiled the list of responses (see below) and attached them to this email. :) We are not accepting donations of materials from anyone until further notice. The Friends are running an online fundraiser. We are not allowing the Friends or any volunteers to work in the building. We stopped selling donated items. We decided to give them away for free. If people want to donate cash, we have a container for it on the shelf near the desk. We are not accepting cash for payment for anything. [image: image.png] No to all of your questions. So far nothing…so far…. [image: image.png] We are not currently accepting donations nor are we selling books. And we are not allowing volunteers of any kind to work in the library. [image: image.png] We are accepting donations – but are being more picky than normal. We are a Class IV library in northern Michigan. - We go out to cars to examine the books before they come into the building. - If they pass inspection, they go into quarantine. We have a quarantine area in our storage room for donations. They get labeled the same as our books. We are currently on a 3 day quarantine, and are considering a 4 day. - Our Friends are coming in one at a time – they have a schedule – to process the donations and get them shelved. This is working well and makes distancing very easy. - The booksale room is open and books are available to purchase, same as the library books are available to checkout. We are having friends in the building. They are required to do all the staff training to be in the building, misymptoms before coming on site and only a few of them are coming in - (FOL members are not encouraged to come in at the same time.) We are accepting limited amounts of donations, and one of our friends is willing to pick up large donations so we forward folks to him. We are NOT currently selling anything (as we're only open for appointments at this moment). [image: image.png] We’re open to the public, but we're not letting FOL volunteers work, and we're not accepting donations. We're not selling donations either because we've decided not to accept any cash for the time being. We have closed our FOL book sale room. However, we have been accepting donations. The donations are received (outside) from 10-2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. We have a cart that they can be placed on. Then we quarantine the books in our shed for several days, after which they are sorted (keep or thrift books). They are then provided free of charge on a table or cart outside the library. That way people without a card have access, and there's browsing available without having to come into the library. It has worked out really well, although it hasn't generated any funds. We have NOT had volunteers back in the building yet due to capacity and visit time limits. Our Friends have a used book store in our lower level. They have decided they do not want to open it to the public even when we go back to letting people in. (We were doing appointments but then a staff member became ill and we went back to curbside only for at least two weeks.) They also do not want us to accept donations because none of their volunteers want to come in to sort and shelve the books. It is their primary source of income, around $11,000 per year, so it's hurting them, and ultimately us. But I let them decide. [image: image.png] We’re not accepting donations of used books or returnable bottles and cans at this time. Monetary donations are always appreciated, but we prefer that they be made online or by check sent through the mail. Staff who handle monetary donations must immediately wash/sanitize hands. No one but staff is allowed to enter our building at this time. Volunteers will not be allowed in the building until the final stage of our reopening plan. We are not selling anything. The goal is for staff to handle cash as little as possible, ideally not at all. [image: image.png] Our Friends of the Library is and has always been very hands-off regarding receiving donations. The library usually receives and sorts donations, with items able to be used in the collection added and the remaining items sorted into "for sale (by Friends)," "for free," and "recycle." The Friends active role is in setting up and staffing the semi-annual book sales in April and October--April was of course canceled; I suspect October may be as well. We are still receiving donations on their behalf, but we're running out of room to store books, since we couldn't have the April sale, we completed a large weeding project while closed, and so many people are trying to offload books they found while cleaning and organizing their own collections while in lockdown. So I kind of ask people how many and confirm they're something that will fall into one of the top three categories. If they just need to be recycled, we're providing them the contact information for a local recycling agency where they can freely drop them off. We still have a standing sale area for used books, which some people are browsing and we've had a few purchases, but foot traffic is low right now and with so many people having recently cleaned out their collection they're not going to be in a hurry to refill that space they freed up. Everything we accept is quarantined before being sorted (by me) and either used, sold, or put out for free. [image: image.png] Our library isn't currently open to the public, so no FOL members are allowed in the building and we aren't selling any items right now either. Our FOL group has a trailer that they have in our parking lot and they have volunteers there during certain times to unlock the trailer to accept donations. People have to put their own donations in the trailer and FOL volunteers can't help them to minimize exposing anyone to contaminated items. I think the books stay in the trailer until it's full, so they are in "quarantine" until they are unloaded at a later date. [image: image.png] We only have one big book sale each year during our community's festival, which has been canceled this year. For right now, we're not accepting donations as we don't want to overrun our limited staff, volunteers, and storage space. We hope to open it back up in a few months with a potential book sale event in the fall. [image: image.png] We’re not taking any FOL donations and our bookstore is not open. [image: image.png] We are accepting book donations for FOL sale. Our FOL group has not met since the end of January. They are due to have a meeting in August. The annual book sale is in October, so that will be the big discussion for the next meeting, when, how, what will it look like if it happens. Our donations come in and are set in a quarantine area for a time. They are then sorted and boxed to take to a storage location. We have a staff person who is our FOL representative who takes care of the donations. She has done this task for years and is very good at it. We do currently sell donated items after they have been quarantined. Our FOL were very excited to get donations because so many people were cleaning out and so many of our patrons were dying to give us donations that we decided to accept donations. Our Friends are planning an outside, under a tent, booksale for September as long as there's no spike in cases. We are in Region 6 and staged as Stage 5 so we can have large outside gatherings. [image: image.png] We are not accepting donations, but patrons sometimes put them in our outdoor dropbox. We quarantine them like everything else. I have allowed two Friends board members to come to the library about once a week for a couple of hours to sort and scan donations that were piling up pre-pandemic. They come in the morning on days when there are less staff in the building. They work in the back by themselves with no other staff around and they wear masks. We check them in for symptoms screening when they arrive. We are not currently selling donations. [image: image.png] We have just started officially taking donations again. Of course, there were always a few people that dropped things in our return box or left a box by the back door. Anyway, we now have 3 appointment times each day M-TH and 2 on Friday. Patrons are supposed to sign up but I know we've had some people just show up (or drop in the return bin). I'm pretty sure that at least one lady lied about signing up but we're trying to keep it manageable. After they sign up for a time slot and it arrives, they pull up where we do Curbside, ring the bell, and someone brings a cart out for them to unload their items. The items are tagged with a date, rolled back to near the Friends Room, and until the new guidelines came out last week, were being held 3 days (now recommending 4). I don't know if the FOL are sticking to that but they have the dates for their reference. They typically hold 2 book sales per month October through June and then have a massive sale in August in conjunction with the annual Melonfest but of course, that isn't happening this year. They've decided to rent a big storage unit at a nearby climate-controlled facility with the hopes of having a big sale in the spring if things are better. We also have two bookshelves in our lobby that hold paperback books that the Friends sell. Typically, they're available anytime the library is open but they have suspended sales on them too. We have 3-4 Friends that are working the book room (sorting, deciding what to keep, etc.) They were trained along with the rest of the staff on new safety protocols, health screening, etc. I often see 2 of them in the library at a time but that is their choice. I happened to be at a different library last week and they ARE selling things from their Friends booth. They had a drop box for the money so it's an honor system. I actually bought a book so I'm guessing that it might be a positive thing to have items available if you can minimize transactions right now. Of course, you'd potentially have to deal with making change but there are some transactions happening in our library anyway (copies, fees for lost/damaged items, etc.). Thanks again! *Harmony Crocker* *Public Services Manager* *Circulation Manager* *FOL Liaison* *Brandon Township Public Library* *304 South Street* *Ortonville, MI 48462* *248.627.1471* *ENGAGE • EDUCATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER* On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:59 PM Harmony Crocker <hcrocker@brandonlibrary.org> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have a couple of questions in regards to what other libraries are doing with their FOL groups and donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

- Are you currently accepting FOL donations? If so how are you doing it to keep staff and FOL volunteers safe? - Are you letting FOL volunteers work in the library? Do you restrict them to a certain area or amount of time in the building? - Are you currently selling donated items?

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

*Harmony Crocker* *Public Services Manager* *Circulation Manager* *FOL Liaison* *Brandon Township Public Library* *304 South Street* *Ortonville, MI 48462* *248.627.1471* *ENGAGE • EDUCATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER*