Category: Services

The Lincoln Library is open! Come on in; we are limiting the number of patrons to 10 at any given time and so far, it has worked out wonderfully well!

As we stumble into June, hopefully, we can find some semblance of normal. The staff of Lincoln Library is in the middle of pooling ideas, searching out crafts, creating games, and gathering awards and prizes. Although many libraries are doing their summer reading program online, the young patrons I have talked to are not interested in participating in a program on their computers. Soooooooo, we are going to move forward with an on-site program that, optimistically, will be fun-filled and memory-making, while staying within the guidelines!

We will be doing sign-up for our Summer Reading Program during the week of June 22, Monday through Friday! Sign-up will take place outside under the porch of the building just north of us (the Mason building) which we purchased last August. We will also be doing the program outside this year! On Tuesdays, we will have a program at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM for children 5 and up. These programs will be the same and will give us the opportunity to see whether patrons prefer coming in the mornings or afternoons. We will be doing programming for 4 and under on Thursdays at 10:00 AM. We will also be doing some crafting on Wednesday mornings at 10:00 AM for those old enough to independently sit and participate.

With the events being held outdoors, we will be able to include refreshments into the activities of the days! We would delight in and welcome all donations of small bottles of water, and other individually packaged drinks and snacks. We would also be happy to help you out if you are looking to rehome crafts of any kind.

We are excited about seeing all of our patrons and are looking forward to spending some time with everyone through the summer reading program. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, we would love to hear them.

I have so appreciated the patience of our patrons these past few weeks!!! Everyone has been wonderful as we have maneuvered through the uncharted COVID-19 minefield. I have never been so happy to live in rural America.

We have been taking appointments and having one patron come in at a time. Beginning June 1, we will leave our door unlocked, but will limit the number of patrons in the library at any given time to 10. This will allow adults to come in and read the paper or work on a computer. Due to the circumstances, we are not allowing children to play on the computers at this time.

If all goes well and there are no weird happenings, we will open the library on June 15. We will continue to clean the premises and materials and quarantine the materials for 7 days, as well as monitoring the number of people in the library!

We will begin the sign-up for the Summer Reading Program on Monday, June 22, beginning at 10:00 AM, through June 25. Of course, we will continue to sign up patrons during the early part of the 6-week program. This year’s program is going to be a lot different than years before. I was wanting to make a few changes and step just a little ways outside the box, but due to the events of the past few weeks, the perimeter of the box is a dim line in the distance.

The theme this year is “Imagine Your Story”, which is fitting with the amount of the imagination going into the planning of this year’s summer reading program!

We should have the majority of the planning done in the next few days and I will be happy to share all the details in next week’s column. We are going to have a good time!!!