As you may have noticed from local media reports and our own social media accounts, Airdrie Public Library (APL) has embarked on a phased reopening plan.
As with all large indoor public spaces in Alberta, we must take this one step at a time and follow Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) guidelines.
On June 1, we began contacting patrons about holds that were on our shelves when we shut down March 19 and started arranging safe pickups for these items. Then, we launched a week-long push June 15 to get more than 26,500 library items back into the building through our outside book drop.
Running the week of June 15 to 19, we set up a daily schedule – which you may have seen on our social media pages and at airdriepubliclibrary.ca – that provided a way for everyone to return their held items, based on the first letter of your last name.
Unfortunately, if you had checked out a Backpacks, GoPro or Nintendo Ds console, you would have had to call or email the library to arrange a time to drop them off.
Going forward, APL's outside book drop will finally be open again around the clock beginning June 22.
Also on June 22, we are launching our curbside pickup service. After you browse through our website for items that are available on the shelf in the library, we will arrange a date and time for you to safely pickup of the items at the library. Stay tuned for our infographic and video on how to do this.
At the time of writing this column, inter-library loans are still on hold; hopefully, that will change soon.
Finally, the library building is tentatively scheduled to open its doors July 6, but with restricted access.
Our programs will remain online for the time being, and like so much during this pandemic, we will approach the future one day at a time.
