Fighting the Coronavirus in a School Library

We are very fortunate that our library is cleaned daily, and deep cleaned on weekends. (Deep cleaning means shampooing, not just vacuuming, carpet, scrubbing the flexible seating areas, and more.) This means my library is one of the cleanest environments in which I have had the pleasure to work.

But then came the Coronavirus.

It came, not to my library, but into existence.

Now comes the time to wonder:

• Before being sent home for the incubation period, did one of the students who had visited China leave the virus in the library/on a book/in a book?
• How do you respond to parents when they ask how we sanitize the pages of the books?
• Will the school be closed by the Ministry of Education?

For the first one, we simply wash our hands, spray disinfectant that works on 99.9% of viruses, and hope. After all, it is not as if the virus can be seen and eliminated on sight! So we are spraying and refusing to worry. (None of the children who visited China for the Chinese New Year have shown symptoms.)

The next one is more difficult. Unless someone has a device of which I have never heard, there is not a way to sanitize the book pages of the hundreds of books we are circulating every week. (If you know of one, pass it one to us!)

Finally, the question that is on everyone's mind: will we close? I don't want this to happen because it will mean the virus has spread a lot. Also, I love my job and enjoy going to work every day. But, I also like to be prepared for any possible scenario. That is why part of today has been spent trying to figure out ways to share stories with students without breaking copyright law by having a video of story-time on You-Tube. (In case you were unaware, the filming of the illustrations and the audio of the words does break copyright law. Many publishers are starting to go after these online story-telling videos.)

While I don't have a perfect solution yet, I am glad we have subscriptions to several e-book platforms, and that students will have access to books in some way if we close.

Stay healthy, my friends!