Fairfield library to remain closed

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Public Library Board of Trustees met Monday, July 20, and voted to keep the library closed to the public for at least another month.

'The trustees are of the opinion that we should remain closed because new COVID-19 cases are popping up around the state,” said Fairfield Public Library Director Rebecca Johnson.

Though the library's doors are closed, its services are not shut down. In fact, residents can check out books and other items from the library by calling the front desk, asking for a title, and picking it up outside the library.

The library has been offering this 'curbside delivery” since March, and Johnson said it's continuing to grow in popularity.

'We're serving an average of 55 vehicles per day, which is a good number,” she said.

Johnson said deliveries vary from day to day, with slow days averaging closer to 40 vehicles, but busy days can see double that number of cars.

The library has just started to allow its reading clubs to begin meeting in person again. The library hosts a number of book and magazine clubs, such as the Wednesday matinee book club, where members read the same book each month.

History Roundtable is a club for patrons to talk about a history book they're reading, where each member of the club could be reading a different book on a completely different subject.

'Some people like it so much they present two books at a time,” Johnson said. 'The variety is interesting because one person is interested in World War II, and another is interested in the history of Chinese art.”

These clubs and others meet at parks in town. However, the library wants to limit the size of these groups to no more than 12 people, so it's only divulging the meeting place to people who register for the club, which can be done by calling the library at 641-472-6551, Ext. 2.

Other reading clubs at the library include the Foreign Affairs Roundtable, which reads an article from the magazine Foreign Affairs, and the Sierra Club Book Club, which reads about environmental issues.

One club that has been meeting over Zoom is the Science Café. The library just held a program earlier this week inviting patrons to view a film on the future of plastic and then having the viewers meet via Zoom for a group discussion. Johnson said there are five more Science Café programs scheduled, and they will be more than just films.

'We'll have college professors giving interactive presentations on Zoom,” she said.

Even while its doors are closed, the library's staff continues to work in the building fulfilling delivery requests. They're preparing and delivering summer reading program activity kits for kids, which patrons can have the instructions emailed to them.

The library is partnering with Jefferson County Extension as a pickup location for its 4-H summer activity kits.

The library offers books by mail for people who are disabled or homebound. They just need a note from their doctor, and they can receive books in the mail without having to pay postage.

'Those folks call us to tell us what they like to read about, we select it for them and ship it free of charge,” Johnson said.

For a few months, the courier service that supplied inter-library loans shut down because so many libraries stopped operating. Johnson said that courier service is up and running again, and with it the inter-library loan service.