Bookmarking Safety – School librarians take extra steps to protect students

 

For Laker school librarians, there are a few more chapters involved in their job duties this year, due to COVID-19. For one, they need to place the books on quarantine.

Yes, quarantine.

Laker Elementary Librarian Donna Simmons and Laker Secondary School Librarian Vicky Pobanz (who also works at the elementary library on Fridays) need to follow a specific process to make sure that books returned by students are safe to be checked out again by other students. Students return books into a large bin, and the bin is covered. At the elementary, the books are then quarantined until the next day. At the secondary school, the books are quarantined for one week, since the library is only open one day per week. After being quarantined, the books are scanned in and stacked on a table for the next step – disinfecting.

Every book needs to be disinfected with wipes (the front and back covers). The disinfected books are placed on a cart, where they stay for one more day. Then, the books are moved to the “Ready to be Shelved” cart, where they can be re-shelved.

At the elementary, Mrs. Simmons takes a cart full of cleaned books to all grade levels every day. Students check out books from the cart and return books at the cart. Each classroom visits the library once a week, and students’ hands are sanitized before they can start looking for books. If students sit at the library tables, the tables are cleaned once the students leave the library.

Hand sanitization and table cleaning also take place at the secondary library.

The extra steps are taken to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Prior to the start of the school year, Mrs. Simmons did some online research to find out what extra precautions she should take in the library. She also contacted Jane Himmel, Pigeon District Library director, to see what was being done at the public library.

Mrs. Simmons said it’s hard to pinpoint the extra amount of time it takes to do the extra cleaning, because she works on it throughout the day between her other duties. She believes it is time well spent because it’s helping keep germs at bay.

“We want to keep the students as healthy as possible,” she said.

Mrs. Pobanz said the extra cleaning at the library falls into place with the rest of the measures the school takes to help curb the spread of germs.

“All of our extra steps aid in the whole effort of the school to stay open and stay healthy,” she said.

Extra cleaning isn’t the only additional duty at the elementary library this year.  Due to some students learning online, Mrs. Simmons needs to bag up library books for those students. In this extra duty, she works with Jodi Golochowicz, a Lakeshore Academy teacher mentor who works with online students. The library books go home with other school-related materials once a week.