It is a bittersweet day Wednesday, April 28th, as it is our own Miss Helen’s last day working at the library. Helen has been with us for 14 amazing years, and we are so grateful for everything she has done. The countless story times she’s produced for over a decade of kiddos, for giving incredible customer service to our patrons, and being a wonderful coworker. Helen, you will be missed! Helen is going into “full-time retirement” and is looking forward to spending more time with her family, especially her grandkids. Come back and visit us soon!

As Helen is leaving, we now have an opening here at the library for a Youth Services Assistant. There is a full job description and position posting available on our website under “Employment”. This person would work roughly 10 regular hours per week and one Saturday a month. They are also responsible for planning and producing Story Time and other programming for children, as well as promoting our early literacy offerings, so being good with children is a must. We will begin reviewing applications on May 10th, 2021 and continue until the position is filled.

If you are a frequent visitor to our Facebook page you may have noticed that we are now accepting materials returns at the circulation desk again. This means that all quarantine for returned materials has been eliminated. This decision was made based off information from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Winding Rivers Library System, and the Center for Disease Control. Findings from the CDC suggest that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection from the fomite transmission route is low and generally less than 1 in 10,000, which means that each contact with a contaminated surface has less than 1 in 10,000 chance of causing an infection. Due to this the library felt comfortable cancelling the quarantine of materials. We are still sanitizing the library frequently, cleaning computers between users, and paying special attention to high touch surfaces.

A reminder as we enter the month of May, the library will be closed on Saturdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day each year. This is new and was a part of our new hours, implemented last fall, that have us open more hours during the week. The library’s last Saturday open until September will be May 22nd.