Pandemic Stories BB
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[00:00:00] Carrie: The Pandemic Stories Project collects stories about individual experiences in Jessamine County during the COVID 19 pandemic to create a communal record of this history making happening. This is Carrie Green and I'm here with my Books and Bites cohosts, Jacqueline Cooper and Michael Cunningham. And we thought we would participate in the Pandemic Stories Project by sharing a little bit about what it was like working here at JCPL, especially in the early days of the pandemic when we shut down

and were kind of working behind the scenes. So I know Michael and I, we were, we were both doing Books and Bites at that time. And then, Jacqueline was the teen librarian as she is now, but also doing a lot of teen programming and we totally had to shift that around. But maybe we should kind of, because I know Michael and I were talking about a little bit earlier and I couldn't even remember all of the stuff,

talk a little bit about what happened initially. The library shut down I think it was in March, right? 

[00:01:12] Michael: Yes. 

[00:01:12] Carrie: 2020, 

[00:01:13] Jacqueline: March 2020. 

[00:01:14] Michael: Oh, I remember that. I came back one day cause I was on paternity leave. Just had my daughter, came back from one day before we shut down and it was initially gonna be three weeks and it turned into three months.

[00:01:28] Carrie: Mm-hmm 

[00:01:29] Michael: and so... 

[00:01:29] Jacqueline: It was surreal for me. I was like, what? 

[00:01:32] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:01:33] Jacqueline: I was like, we're shutting down? And then everyone was shutting down and I was like, I felt like I was in a utopian novel or something. I was just like, is this, this isn't, this can't be real. 

[00:01:44] Michael: Yeah.

[00:01:45] Jacqueline: It just seemed so, so surreal as some people 

say.

[00:01:49] Carrie: Yeah. And I think, I don't know, like we just expected: okay, well, it'll be three weeks and then we'll, you know, things will be back to normal, but that's not what happened at all. And everything just kept changing. 

[00:02:05] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:02:06] Jacqueline: Our jobs just changed just like a complete 180 on how we, we did our jobs and what we had to learn to do our jobs.

It was good in the, in the hindsight at the time it was like kind of terrifying, but I really feel like I learned a, I feel like I learned a lot. I was able to come up with an, a presence and I was like, I was telling Michael when I first started working here, you had your Books and Bites and there was a teen librarian doing it.

And I was like, to me that was terrifying. Like, oh, I, I don't think I can speak in public but, but with having, with needing to do this for my job, I actually, when there was an opening in Books and Bites, I was like, I think I can do this now. So there's a lot of good that came out of it. Even though it was 

hard.

[00:03:03] Carrie: Yeah. So maybe backtrack a little bit. 

[00:03:06] Jacqueline: Okay. 

[00:03:06] Carrie: For people who might not be aware. So you shifted a lot of your teen programs online to making videos and other things. So you wanna talk a little bit about that? 

[00:03:19] Jacqueline: Yeah, I learned how to make a video and that was like, there's a lot that goes into making a video and of course,

I had no, there was no one to help me because we were all at home. And so I had to learn how to set the camera up. I had to learn how to write my own scripts, to stand in front of the camera, which is really hard. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it's a little scary to stand up there and, and, you know, that the whole world's watching you.

Because it's online now, you know, it's one thing when you get up and talk to a group of teens in, in the library, you know, if you make a mistake it's not recorded for all time. 

[00:04:00] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:04:01] Jacqueline: Like it is on the internet. So it was interesting because I didn't know how to do any of that stuff.

And then I also had to learn how to use editing software called Filmora, which I had never done any kind of editing. And I actually got the prof. Everyone else got one version and I got a different version. So 

[00:04:21] Michael: Oh no. 

[00:04:22] Jacqueline: I got this professional version, which being a non someone who's never used any kind of editing software.

It's really Filmora professional version. It's, it's huge. I, I, they it's called professional for a reason.

[00:04:39] Carrie: So you are the Filmora professional now. 

[00:04:45] Jacqueline: They finally, when I kept, they finally gave me the unprofessional version and I was like, I, because if you moved anything, things kept disappearing and, and it was like, I couldn't. And my husband's actually , he was very helpful. Jason Cooper. He, he even he's a technology person.

He actually that's he's tech services in a library. And he was like, I have no idea what this is. so so I feel a little, a bit better about that. 

[00:05:17] Carrie: Okay. So Michael, and I was at the time working some reference too, but your job at the time was really focused on customer service. 

[00:05:27] Michael: Yes. 

[00:05:27] Carrie: So how did that change at the library?

[00:05:30] Michael: So when 

we, so while we were shut down I helped out with Books and Bites and recorded at home. My think my screaming daughter was immortalized in one episode. And also we did Ask a Librarian or not Ask a Librarian, sorry, Text a Librarian. Where people can text in and get help. And we, you know, we did that in shifts between us and the different reference librarians during that time.

And I know we did read off the fines to help people get access to some of the digital stuff if they were blocked and that's primarily what I focused on while we were shut down for those three months. When we came back, I want to say, when was that? June? 

[00:06:12] Carrie: Yeah.I think 

it was June, 

[00:06:14] Michael: June we were strictly curbside.

So we were just running stuff out and we had set up doing all that. We were helping pull holds, which were, let me tell you, they built up quite a lot. We had hundreds of pages of stuff we had to get. And so people downstairs and collection access and customer access, now we were all, children's, we were all just doing that, working on that, getting cards, calling people, contacting them and getting curbside set up.

You know, I think we did that for one, maybe two weeks before we finally opened up to the general public again. And, you know, that was stressful. You know, cuz mask enforcement and having people up front to monitor how many people were coming into the building and make sure it didn't exceed the maximum capacity, you know?

And then just the general COVID anxiety and everything like that. It was, it was, it was a stressful atmosphere, but I feel like we adapted and overcame a lot. 

[00:07:25] Jacqueline: Yeah. We took all, they took the seating out, which. 

[00:07:27] Michael: Yeah, that's true. 

[00:07:28] Jacqueline: That's something that like people could come in and grab for a long time, but there, there wasn't any seating except if they needed to use the computer.

And that was very limited. 

[00:07:37] Michael: That that was like 

only like an hour a day to start 

[00:07:40] Jacqueline: something. Yeah. Something 

like that. 

[00:07:41] Michael: So yeah, it was come in and get your stuff and, and leave for, for a while. And then I wanna say towards the wintertime when the surge was about to happen, it was happening. We shut down again, just, just strictly curbside during the Christmas into December going into the first couple weeks of January.

And then finally we reopened the doors again and they started come falling off. 

[00:08:09] Jacqueline: When did we start? When did we bring the furniture back? Do you remember when that, when the furniture started coming back, when they were able to. 

[00:08:15] Michael: I wanna 

say that spring that's I guess when the mandates finally started coming off, like capacity limits were expanded and finally fell away.

And then 

[00:08:23] Carrie: I think people were getting vaccinated then 

[00:08:26] Michael: vaccinated. Yes. When vaccinations started happening.

[00:08:29] Jacqueline: Okay. 

[00:08:29] Michael: I think when that started 

[00:08:31] Jacqueline: that's when, 

[00:08:31] Michael: yeah, 

[00:08:32] Jacqueline: that changed. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we were had, we had to space out everything. The computers had to be spaced out they were putting them down here and back here to start out with.

[00:08:44] Michael: Everything had to be cleaned all the time. Someone even came near it. You had to spray 

it. 

[00:08:49] Carrie: We were also quarantining books. 

[00:08:52] Michael: That's 

right. Oh man. 

[00:08:54] Jacqueline: Yeah. I remember that.

[00:08:55] Michael: The meeting rooms were full full of books. Oh man. People downstairs. 

[00:09:00] Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. There, their jobs really increased. And that was, you know, before we knew

that COVID was, you know, transmitted mainly through airborne particles. You know, we, at that time, we didn't really know if touching a book that had COVID on it, you know, if you could get COVID that way. 

[00:09:18] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:09:18] Carrie: So that was kind of an extra precaution, which fortunately they don't have to take that. We don't have to do that anymore.

[00:09:26] Michael: yeah. 

[00:09:28] Carrie: Yeah. I think my job. I think I was a little bit, I was kind of lucky because I had made videos before and I think a lot of my fellow programmers hadn't done that. I'd also done, you know, editing podcasts. So, I had some of those skills already. So I, and I was also doing a lot as I do now of work on the website and we actually

you know, debuted our our redesign of the front page when we were shut down, which I was nervous about. 

[00:10:05] Michael: Oh yeah. 

[00:10:05] Carrie: Because you know, here's this weird environment. And then we're also changing how people access our materials. But actually I think that made us a lot more flexible in how we were able to respond on the website.

So I think that was good overall too. What do you all think about, you know, how did, how did the library change during the pandemic? 

[00:10:36] Jacqueline: Well, they did change like for me, they changed, they did a reorg, which like during the pandemic. So my, that also changed a lot of people's workflow and jobs, like part of my, I no longer did selection, which I used to do, which was nice in the beginning of the pandemic.

Cuz that was something I could do from home. And I knew how to do so when that shifted off, it was like it was a little more stressful because then it became more about doing the part of the job that I didn't necessarily know how to do. 

But so. 

[00:11:10] Carrie: Well I guess, I mean more like yes, you're you're right.

That was a change. But how did the pandemic, you know, and all those forces change the library and our customers' use of the library. I don't know. What do you think? 

[00:11:26] Michael: Well, I think it took some time to people finally come back in person. I think they were they were using our digital services and stuff like that.

And I think our services have changed too. Like we still offer curbside, that has stuck around

[00:11:43] Jacqueline: Well, the seating, I think, I think people, some people started to come back a little, but it was such, they just weren't used to, we kind of lost that, that base of people coming into the library because there was, they couldn't stay very long.

So. A lot of 'em did use the curbside because it was convenient. And then they didn't really have to worry about being exposed. But I think a lot of people, I think just now people are the, traffic's starting to come back this summer with our summer learning program. Because last summer we did not have 

[00:12:23] Carrie: in person programs 

[00:12:24] Jacqueline: in person programming, well, we had a little bit, I think, but.

did we have a tiny bit of in person? I 

[00:12:32] Carrie: don't think we did 

[00:12:33] Michael: not for a while. 

[00:12:34] Carrie: Yeah. We didn't have any children's in-person 

programs. 

[00:12:38] Jacqueline: I think the in person programming. Yeah. This summer, that you're right. I think that has really helped bring back people because we just weren't having the foot traffic until.

I actually talked to the director and he said that the numbers are starting, people are starting to come in again. So I think the summer learning has helped with that. 

[00:13:00] Michael: I was, I was just gonna say that I feel like it helped maybe, you know, rethink how to reach out to the community and how to provide services.

Away from the community. Make it more accessible to those people. . 

[00:13:19] Carrie: Yeah, I know that one thing, for a while, I was also, you know, doing programs, kind of hybrid programs, where people could join in person or online. And it's kind of a tricky thing to do, but it also kind of opened my eyes to the fact that a lot of people just can't physically come into the library.

And so that's a way of serving you know, serving those people. We also now have the Jessamine Events Mobile. 

[00:13:52] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:13:52] Carrie: Which we got a grant for. So that brings programs out into the community and you know, like with Books and Bites well, yeah, that's the program that we did hybrid in person and online.

And we also try to meet that program outside because it's a little bit safer. So whenever the weather is good, we like to meet outside. So I think, I think we rethought a lot of things during the pandemic. 

[00:14:23] Michael: Yeah. 

[00:14:24] Jacqueline: Yeah. Offsite programming was another thing we did the last summer. We did the program.

The summer learning program was a drive through 

[00:14:32] Carrie: mm-hmm the preview party. 

[00:14:34] Jacqueline: Yeah. And so we, and we had a outside not a beach party was outside. Offsite at a, at the park, the Riney B Park. And we continued to do that. We did that again this year and it was pretty successful. More people came than even the year before.

So yeah, that is a big, that's a big change. The offsite programming and, and the, and like you mentioned, the J.E.M. events mobile. 

[00:15:01] Carrie: Yeah. And I think you know, one other thing that I think is important to mention is that even though people weren't physically coming into the library, our circulation numbers, as far as I understand, never really 

changed.

[00:15:15] Michael: Yeah, they, yeah, they still, they kept. Curbside was quite busy. Running back and forth. I believe our digital materials was very high people have really, I think, turned on to Kentucky Libraries Unbound and Hoopla Digital and using those resources. Cuz I know just spending time at reference desk, I troubleshoot that stuff a lot.

So I mean, yeah. I think people maybe, you know, they're still kind of, I think we're still seeing them come back now. But I think they're still using library in other ways. That we just don't 

see. 

[00:15:55] Jacqueline: So did the library have a YouTube channel before the pandemic? 

[00:16:01] Carrie: Yes. 

[00:16:01] Michael: Oh yeah.

[00:16:02] Carrie: Yeah, we did. Although it was more like sporadic, I think, but yeah, that was definitely a big change. 

[00:16:11] Jacqueline: Yeah. I was thinking it was.

[00:16:14] Carrie: We started, we really developed our YouTube channel. 

[00:16:16] Michael: Oh yeah. 

[00:16:17] Jacqueline: Oh yeah. 

[00:16:18] Michael: The content on there is just, there's a lot of content yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can learn just about anything on our YouTube channel.

[00:16:27] Jacqueline: oh yeah. There's a lot of YouTube experts have come to bear, I think .

[00:16:33] Michael: Oh. And another thing's popped to mind. Our Library of Things. So, people could check out things while we were closed, pick 'em up curbside and do things outside. Disc golf, bird watching, things that, you know, you didn't have to stay cooped up inside.

[00:16:50] Jacqueline: True. Yeah. I tried to do some of my programming outside. Like I tried to video some outside stuff. Which so people, they really, we encourage people to get out and, you know, even though they couldn't maybe go that they couldn't go a lot of places, but they could still get outside. And bird watch or we did the the other series Walk Around Kentucky 

[00:17:11] Michael: was, oh yeah.

I remember remember that. Oh yeah. Yeah. A Beanstack thing, when we had to, we used an app for summer learning, keeping track of that. Oh yeah. Which was a new thing brand new to us. And I know we we've used it. We've used it over the past year or so for various things. Right? 

[00:17:30] Jacqueline: So they really like the website

though. 

[00:17:34] Michael: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Jacqueline: Carrie, Carrie built this website for summer learning and people seem to really like it a lot, a lot more. 

[00:17:42] Carrie: Do they? Oh, that's good to hear. Cause I didn't, I haven't heard feedback on it. Yeah. I think being stuck was great while we had, while we needed it. And didn't have anything else.

It's something a summer learning, you know, being able to monitor all that stuff online was something we had, you know, thought about doing for a while. But it ended up being, I think, a little bit tricky to use. 

[00:18:07] Michael: Yeah. It, yeah. Yeah. 

[00:18:09] Jacqueline: It was for the user, for the, for the librarians, I thought like getting reports and stuff like that was very help was easier.

But the, for the user, I, I don't know that it was as user friendly as our website, our website's very user friendly. Good usability, Carrie. 

[00:18:27] Carrie: Oh. Oh, thank you. So maybe one last question. How did life at home change for you during the pandemic? I know Michael for you, it really changed. 

[00:18:43] Michael: Yeah, I was, it was pretty much I had taken what, four weeks off a month

for paternity leave and it turned into an extra three months so, I mean, it was great spending time with my daughter and seeing her grow up, being at home during that time. But you know, after a while it gets a little tough being trapped inside with, with that newborn. Oh no, . 

[00:19:11] Jacqueline: Well, my pets really liked it, that I was home all the time and wanted to star in many of my videos , but I was ready to, I missed the teens.

I loved working with teens and I really missed the interaction with other people. So I was really happy when then when we was able to come back to the library the, I was the most happiest when we brought the furniture back and I was like, yay, cuz then they could stay. And, and 

[00:19:41] Michael: you poor teens, couldn't hang out.

[00:19:43] Jacqueline: I know, me and my teens. I, I do enjoy working with them very 

much. 

[00:19:49] Carrie: Yeah, I guess, you know, it was a stressful time, like not knowing what was happening and all of that stuff, but I. I liked working from home and 

[00:19:59] Michael: yeah. 

[00:20:00] Carrie: Not commuting and 

[00:20:02] Michael: yes. 

[00:20:02] Carrie: That sort of thing. But you know, of course, I don't miss the gigantic Teams meetings we used to have online.

Yes. Things like that. So 

[00:20:15] Michael: yeah. 

[00:20:16] Carrie: You know, it's it. 

[00:20:19] Jacqueline: I do like meeting in person better than on Teams. It's it's a lot 

more 

[00:20:24] Michael: Trying to find a quiet place to work was rough. 

[00:20:27] Jacqueline: That was hard because 

[00:20:28] Michael: we had to go do a 

thing 

[00:20:30] Jacqueline: Neither Michael and I had, we didn't have offices, so 

[00:20:32] Michael: No, 

[00:20:33] Jacqueline: we were like, we really struggled to try to find a place to record or 

[00:20:37] Michael: Oh, at home

but when we came back that's that was true. Like, yeah, here, cuz we had to well, we didn't have our own space. So we had to go find a space that wasn't being used. yeah. Which was very difficult. 

[00:20:49] Jacqueline: And my husband was trying to work from home too. So there was that whole, like, yeah, he's trying to work from home.

I'm trying to work from home and, you know, trying to find that where you're not walking into someone's video or... 

[00:21:02] Carrie: Yeah. I think a lot of people experienced that. There's been a lot of online readings since the pandemic that I have gone to, and I remember one of my first online readings that I attended the author was like sitting in a recliner in his living room and his kitchen was in the background and you saw his teenager go to the refrigerator and open up the refrigerator

and leave, and that was like before people knew to, you know, set up their, their backgrounds and have their lights on them and everything, you know, it was just, it was very funny. 

[00:21:42] Michael: That is one of the good things that came outta the pandemic and seeing these people do Zoom calls and don't know what's going on in the background.

[00:21:49] Jacqueline: Oh yeah, that's hilarious.

[00:21:50] Michael: Or don't know, the camera is actually on them. 

[00:21:55] Jacqueline: Yeah. There's been some parod ies of people and they're, and they're, they're pretty funny. It's so funny that it was so surreal. Like even in Hollywood, like they were home. You know, and it was just like, wow, they're filming. They're making stuff from home.

It was just, now looking back, I, I see some of, a lot of the good things that came out of it but at the time it was pretty scary. And then of course, you know, there are people who lost loved ones and, and... 

[00:22:27] Carrie: Yeah. And that is unfortunately still going on.

Yeah. And I, I guess that, that reminds me of, I think one of the good things that came out of the pandemic for me was meeting Martha, well, meeting her online, Martha Greenwald from the Whowelost project. She does Whowelost and Whowelost Kentucky. And they are spaces where people who lost relatives during the pandemic.

And it could, they don't, it didn't have to be from COVID, but from you know, from other causes, but maybe they couldn't have a funeral because everything was locked down. It's a space where they can share their memories of their loved ones without you know, anybody making comments on social media.

It's, you know, it's a safe space and she really helps lead people through that process. And so we've done a couple programs here at the library where Martha has led classes on remembering our loved ones. And yeah, but thank you for bringing that up Jacqueline, because I think that's something, you know, that people don't think about is how many, how many millions of lives were lost.

And not only that, just how disenfranchised people have been from their grief and their ability to mourn and people who lost loved ones due to COVID and are still reminded every day of that, you know, because COVID is still raging. 

[00:24:06] Jacqueline: It still, yeah, we're still losing people and of course we, there are some happier times but.

Like some mothers weren't allowed to have anyone in there when they had their babies. Michael, you had another baby right during 

[00:24:20] Michael: I had February and I was, I was the only one in there. No family could come up for those three or four days we were in there. So I was the only one allowed to leave and come back.

So, I mean, that was well, you're 

[00:24:31] Jacqueline: lucky 

you even got to do that. 

[00:24:33] Michael: I know. Yeah. 

[00:24:34] Jacqueline: So. 

[00:24:34] Carrie: Well, thank you for talking about your pandemic stories, and we hope that some of our listeners will think about contributing their stories. We all lived through this, so we're just interested in hearing how you managed during the pandemic and what your favorite stories are from the pandemic.