Directors Zoom Recordings & Notes
Sept 23, 2020
Notes from the call:
Mari Martin, Director of the Libraries Branch.
An election was called on Mon Sept 22. So changes happen in government. We’re now in the “interim period” which refers to the time in between governments. No big policy changes are made during this time. The public service of the Libraries Branch will keep running, their work remains the same. The only difference is no big changes will be made.
Technology Interim Reports are due Oct 15th
There may be some voting packages arriving to your libraries for you to share out with the public.
(7:10). Update from Andrea Freeman about ABCPLD collaborating more with BCLTA in the future. One of the areas we’ve identified for collaboration is training. A few things happening in the near future:
Babs and Jerrilyn will be attending our Oct 7th zoom call to introduce themselves and talk about their roles. (Babs used to be the Executive Director, and is now the Director of Learning & Development. Jerrilyn is the new Executive Director.)
Andrea is attending 2 Trustee Meet Ups in October. One of the topics they’ll be talking about is performance evaluations and compensation for their Directors. In order to bring an accurate picture of your experiences to the Trustees, Andrea will be sending out a brief survey to gather your stories.
(9:12). Quarantining Library Materials
Interlink Library Update: Susan Walters (Richmond) - many libraries in Interlink are finding that quarantining library materials are simply not sustainable, given skeleton staff crews. Some libraries are prepared to reduce their quarantine starting next week. Even within Interlink, there are different approaches.
Steph Hall (West Van) - They’re moving towards eliminating quarantine. They’ll be using BCCDC advice to let patrons know they can quarantine their own materials using a paper bag.
Beth Davies (Burnaby) - Same as West Van. It’s a space and staffing issue. Concern about RSI and other health issues. Moving towards eliminating quarantine.
Suggestion to draft FAQs, Beth will write a first draft
Surinder Bhogal (Surrey) - Agree that there’s no benefit to quarantining. But this is also change management issue. Their staff are almost 50/50 between no quarantining and quarantining a little bit. They get asked what they’re doing to protect the public. They think there is value for 1 day, so they’ll likely move towards 24 hours of quarantine.
Scott Hargrove (Fraser Valley) - Similar to Surrey. Surface transmission is extremely low risk. But their legal counsel said it’s accepting risk (PR-wise and with staff) by completely eliminating quarantine. They’re likely moving towards 24 hours of quarantine. Their timing is likely early October.
Marc Saunders (Port Moody) - No support or pressure to reduce the quarantine. It works within their work flow. Staff and Board and the City are happy with it. Will re-evaluate in 6-8 weeks from now. Supportive of others who want to eliminate quarantine.
Christina de Castell (Vancouver) - Received advice from their risk management office. They want the library to follow health advice and not follow our own decisions. If they chose to go to 24 hours of quarantine, it would be out of an abundance of caution, because it might be easier from a public perception standpoint. VPL would prefer to go to no quarantine (huge handling and RSI issue in Vancouver). Ready to go there if Burnaby and Richmond are moving in that direction. It’s ok if not all libraries are exactly the same.
Don Nettleton (Okanagan) - They’d like to move towards eliminating the quarantine. Main thing to address is staff concerns.
Heather Buzzell (Penticton) - She’d like to get rid of quarantine. Hardly any cases in the Okanagan region. She’s getting push from the staff to keep quarantining materials. If a change, coming in mid-October.
Judy Moore (Thompson-Nicola) - One of their concerns is on collection performance. They want to eliminate quarantine in order to address this bottleneck.
Poll to gauge where libraries are currently at re: Quarantining Library Materials
See Poll Results. Most libraries are moving to reduce or eliminate quarantine periods in the next few weeks to month. Let’s continue to share experiences, especially for those are making the leap to remove quarantine altogether. Bring an update on the next Zoom call.
(34:36). What about libraries that don’t want to change? Main reasons is staff anxiety/paranoia.
Mental health issues. We’re seeing more and more of this coming up. For small libraries who don’t have HR department, they’re looking for how to move forward in the coming months with really significant mental health concerns amongst staff and patrons.
Program called “Not Myself Today” from Canadian Mental Health Association. Judy Moore (Thompson-Nicola) will be using this in their library.
(40:43). What happens when a board member disagrees with the quarantine approach?
The Board does have a role when it comes to risk. But their job is to identify the risk and then ask the Director how the risk is being mitigated. Quarantine was never the only thing that we’ve been doing to prevent COVID.
Hierarchy of Controls, you can use this to defend the decisions you’re making.
(45:45). Staff cleaning high touch surfaces.
Don Nettleton (Okanagan) trying to update cleaning procedures for staff to clean high touch surfaces every 3 hours. They’ve received significant push back from CUPE because they’re perceiving this isn’t work they should be expected to do. Are others experiencing this kind of push back from their staff?
Scott Hargrove (Fraser Valley): Having a similar conversation. They’ve learned that Parks staff are doing this kind of cleaning.
Deb Koep (North Van City): They have an LOU with staff about doing work outside their normal duties. Their staff are also happy they’re working. Alternative is to lay off staff and hire more contract cleaners, so there’s some common sense at play.
Heather Evans-Cullen (Gibsons) : I do the cleaning myself twice a day which helps
Cari (Grand Forks): Grand Forks staff are doing it, no questions asked at all
Heather Buzzell (Penticton) : Everyone does it here - no arguments at all
Monika Willner : the same Burns Lake
Wanda (Cariboo Regional) : Frankly, I expected to have threats of grievances around cleaning requirements, but it has been surprising quiet. Still crossing my fingers....
Beverley Rintoul (Rossland): We aren’t unionized and our staff just assumed that we would have to do high touch cleaning, including toilet handles and taps.
Alex Faucher (Elkford): We are not unionized so I don't know if this is relevant. My staff did push back at first but I do the cleaning with them, and if they are busy with a patron and cleaning needs to be done I will jump up and do it, which I think has helped.
Rebecca Burbank : Powell River staff are cleaning all high contact surfaces outside the washrooms.
Danika Andrews (Fort Nelson): Staff here at FNPL are doing a cleaning of high touch surfaces at opening/closing everyday as well as at 2 hours intervals. After discussion with staff, they have voiced that they would prefer that it is done by them going forward.
Cari : I should say I made very clear to everyone that they are not “cleaning the bathrooms” but “sanitizing high touch surfaces” and everyone has been instructed that if it’s actually dirty that we will just mark it out of order and leave it for the janitors
(54:25). Question from the Library Partners: "If you had more funding, what else could libraries be doing to aid with COVID recovery?" We’ll use your responses to frame a budget ask, as we’ve received guidance from Minister of Education Rob Fleming to ask for 1) sustained, increased funding for all BC public libraries, and 2) one-time funding to aid with COVID recovery.
(1:01:41). Deb Koep (North Vancouver City). Currently asking people to limit their time in the library to 1 hour. As they look to the fall/winter, they’re looking to increase the duration of time people spend in the library. The feedback they received from North Van City is there’s no concern about people spending longer amounts of time in the library. Duration didn’t need to be a factor in their decision making, so they’re expanding interior seating and letting people stay up to 2 hours.
(1:06:22). How to support staff through mental health challenges.
(1:13:25). Steph Hall (West Vancouver). Budget cuts. Would like to collaborate with others on strategies to address these conversations.
(1:20:31). Question about use of outdoor spaces.
Sept 9, 2020
Notes from the call:
Mari Martin: Ministry of Education is very busy with back to school. A few updates:
Libraries Branch has requested that October 2020 be proclaimed Library Month. If there’s any work you’re doing re: Library Month in your libraries, send an email to Libraries Branch so they can capture those stories.
They’re looking at the annual survey, although a bit delayed due to staff vacations. They’ll have more updates soon on what Typical Week Survey will look like this year.
Paul Burry: Beyond Hope Conference. They’re considering whether to make the conference virtual, or postpone it by a year. Nothing has been decided yet.
Guidance document from the Libraries Branch. Mari was seeking feedback on whether updates to this document would be helpful for Directors. Consensus that it’s not worth updating the document, but retains value as is for archival and informational purposes for new Directors.
(21:12). Zoom Calls moving forward. Agreement to try out the Board proposal (likely starting in November) and evaluate after 4-6 months to see if it’s worth continuing.
Board proposal to retain 2 calls per month. 1st call is the same as they have been - focused on COVID type conversations, includes guests each time, short questions and sharing of current practices. The 2nd call would be “peer mentorship hour” and provides a deeper dive into a challenge or topic, that would be submitted and shared ahead of time. Groups would be broken into smaller groups to allow for more fulsome conversation.
(26:32). Home services - how are you running your service right now?
Elizabeth Tracy: piggy back on another organization who is providing similar services.
Susan Walters: We've continued this service through the pandemic, for details please don't hesitate to reach out to Anne Bechard 604-231-6439 or anne.bechard@yourlibrary.ca . They’ve increased the size of the deliveries.
Beverley Rintoul : Like Elizabeth says. Rotary delivers groceries here and they will deliver library books for us but no one has wanted it yet.
Wendy Cinnamon, Valemount Public Library : We deliver to doorstep only, but very rarely have this service requested. Staff do the deliveries when needed.
KarenH : We have continued our Visiting Library Service to private homes (but have postponed our outreach to care homes), using volunteers, so please follow up for more details.
Ursula Brigl : My staff person makes deliveries to the door, with special arrangements for the long-term care and assisted living facilities.
From Pam Morris - Dawson Creek Public Library : We deliver to six patrons in an assisted living building and we have arranged to drop books at the door and a staff member brings us the returning books. We don't come into contact with any of the patron residents. Those in their own homes - we do porch exchanges.
Heather Evans-Cullen : We provide service to over 50 residents at a care facility in Gibsons- one designated staff meets the facility staff outside their building to hand over new books/ audiobooks etc each month
(33:16). Quarantine periods for collection items.
Some discussion about where current thinking is, including legal and PR implications.
Elizabeth: Let’s re-visit this topic in a few weeks once we’ve seen what happens with this return to school month of September.
(43:15). Contract tracing.
Beverly Rintoul is being asked to do contact tracing at Rossland library.
Elizabeth Tracy: has received some similar questions from Whistler. Her take is this is a slippery slope and she doesn’t want to embark down this road because of future implications.
Scott Hargrove: legal counsel told him there’s no legal requirement for libraries to do contact tracing. Only restaurants and a few other specific industries are required to do this. Privacy reasons is a defensible reason why libraries aren’t doing contact tracing. The person who is the landlord of your building can’t require you to do something or follow certain rules.
Cari Lynn Gawletz: Multiple instances of police coming to ask for information. She’s cautious to start collecting any personal information like this. It would have to be a provincial order for us to start taking that kind of information.
(52:27). What are your plans for indoor programming as we move into fall?
Leianne Emery: They have a big lobby area with District of Sechelt, and they have permission to bring their outdoor programs into this space. This lobby area is outside of the library.
Alex Faucher : We have a space in our library where we can sit 6-7 adults with social distancing, so we plan to hold small group things like book clubs partially in person with overflow on Zoom
Scott Hargrove: Currently doing risk assessments for indoor programming. Legally safe way is to do risk assessment and determine what numbers/practices are acceptable.
KarenH : We had outdoor library summer camp in parking lot and park next door and library book club outside, and we will not have these programs inside.
Toby Mueller: Limiting numbers in indoor spaces. And no snacks.
(58:00). Comment about how hard it is to be “bouncers” right now of the library rather than welcoming people in.
Concern that keeping people away may have a long term impact on visitors coming to the library. Are we contributing to our oblivion? Joe is talking to his Board about starting focus groups on how to engage and invigorate the community and their connection to the library.
(1:05:10). Small group conversation focused on the question: How can we ensure the relevancy (restore the relevancy) of the library after this long absence and through the COVID period?