CARIBOU, Maine — Caribou area residents will once again be able to check out books from the Caribou Public Library when the library begins its remote pickup service on June 1.
The service will be similar to curbside pickup, library director Hope Shafer said, which is happening at grocery stores and restaurants across the country as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced both businesses and public facilities to quickly adapt their services.
Patrons can search the library’s database through a catalog of available books by visiting cariboupubliclibrary.org and clicking on the “catalog” tab. Once they’ve picked out a book, they can contact the library in advance with their request. Requests can be made by phone at 207-493-4214, email at CPLReserveBooks@gmail.com, or by visiting the Caribou Public Library Facebook page and sending a message.
Once the request is made, Shafer said she and library staff will pull the requested books from the shelves while wearing gloves and masks, place it in a bag with the patron’s name and then set it out on a table in front of the library. Once it’s ready, the library will contact the patron to let them know it’s time to pick up their book, movie, or CD.
“Everything goes into a 14-day business day quarantine once it’s returned, so unfortunately everyone won’t be able to read the newest James Patterson book all at the same time,” Shafer said
The service will be available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. Shafer encouraged patrons to call early, as an order placed at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday likely won’t be available until at least 10 a.m. on Monday.
“We’re just trying to ensure the health and safety of our patrons to the best of our ability,” the director said. “We know this has been a really hard time for everybody, and it’s just as hard on librarians. Our mission is to put reading material in the hands of our patrons, and we’re excited to be able to do this again — we just want to do it as safely as possible.”
The library will continue to offer this service until they are able to fully reopen to the public, which Shafer said would likely occur at some point in July. Even then, the library will need to place a limit on the number of patrons allowed in the building based on guidelines set by Gov. Janet Mills as part of the state of civil emergency protocols.
“We’ll have to limit the number of people in the library which means you can’t come in and stay all day,” she said. “We’ll have to limit computer time to 30-minute slots to maintain social distancing, and we’ll only have four computers available instead of the six we normally have.”
Since the library closed to the public on March 16, Shafer and staff have been hard at work behind the scenes, finding lost books, dusting shelves and maintaining contact with the community online. Children’s Librarian Erin Albers has been posting readings of chapter books on Monday through Friday, and one weekly video of her reading picture books via the library’s Facebook page.
Shafer and library staff are excited to see their patrons face to face, she said and that she receives phone calls every day from residents saying they miss the library, or asking her to sneak books out the back door.
Shafer said that while she obviously can’t fulfill these requests, she has been telling everyone that she and everyone at the library misses seeing people in the community on a daily basis.
“We all tell them that we miss them,” she said. “Libraries are the hub of the community and it’s hard to be a hub without the community. All the librarians I talk to on a daily basis tell me they can’t wait to see their patrons. Our patrons are our family, and just like everyone else who is separated from their family right now, we miss them terribly.”
