Recently Asked Questions

A small, rural public library, we have public restrooms. In pre-pandemic times, our restrooms were not kept locked, and were cleaned once a day by our building's maintenance person.

Both restrooms are ADA-compliant and include a changing table. We have already installed motion sensors on the toilets and sink and replaced the hot air dryer with paper towels. Currently, our building is only open to staff and they wipe down touched surfaces with cleaner after use, and initial that they have done so on a bathroom cleaning log as required by our Safety Plan.

As we edge toward reopening to the public, we have many questions around these restrooms. Should we lock the restrooms and require the public to ask for a key? Should we lock the restrooms to the public entirely? Should we return to our pre-pandemic practice of completely open restrooms cleaned once a day? Should we require non-janitorial staff to clean the restrooms during open hours, and, if yes, how often, and do they require training on the products and methods required to clean a public restroom during a pandemic--and what kind of PPE does that require?

Any guidance on how to handle ostensibly public restrooms in an ostensibly public building is appreciated.

My library's reopening plan calls for not allowing group meetings/ programs for a time.

There is some concern for a BOT member as to if the library can legally do this. The concern is if a community group or club that regularly meets in the library were to want to meet again, could they challenge the library in regards to this issue? In a nutshell, the question is "Do we legally have the right to suspend and not allow all meeting room use as the library reopens?"

As library director my thought process is that as long as the policy is being equally and fairly enforced to everyone then there should not be an issue. This does beg the question however as to what may happen if the city, which owns the building calls "eminent domain" and quickly demands use of a meeting space they own in an emergency circumstance. This is rare but has happened a few times in the past.

Any input you have would be greatly appreciated.

I work at a public library that is gradually reopening to the public. We employ quite a few librarians who trend older and have underlying health conditions. Many of these staff have been working remotely for the past few months, but not necessarily on tasks essential to their positions. As we begin to recall employees to the physical worksite, some are requesting to continue working from home, and/or for indefinite relief from working directly with the public, because of their vulnerability to Covid-19 complications.

While we are working to accommodate our employees, we also realize that working directly with the public is an essential part of being a *public librarian*. So how can we effectively accommodate public librarians who are asking to *not* work with the public?

We have done this during our work-from-home phase, when our Library was required to remain closed. But I don't believe that we can sustain this over the longer term. At some point, we may have to hire people to fill the in-person needs of the Library, and won't have enough "at-home" work for existing staff to do.

Thank you for your guidance.

In regards to COVID-19 when libraries do reopen, (and allow people in) is it advisable to ask customers to leave the public building if they are exhibiting any visible COVID symptoms? If so, are there benchmarks for how extreme symptoms should be or how policies should be worded? There are of course patron behavior policies in place allowing for the removal of anything disruptive, which can include noise or inappropriate behavior. There are some members of our leadership team who believe our safety reopening plan should include provision specifically mentioning symptoms of COVID-19 and the staff's/ library's right to remove them if symptoms are exhibited. There are other concerns that library staff are not medical professionals and we are not able to determine if a few sneezes and coughs are common colds, allergies or COVID. Attached is our library's current reopening plan

Should a board of trustees vote on their institution’s COVID-19 Safety Plan?  Or should the adoption of the Plan be left entirely to the institution’s director or executive director?