Libraries turn to drone delivery, outdoor browsing, and other alfresco services

anonymous person with binoculars looking through stacked books
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

You all know that providing library service during the pandemic is hard! It’s just hard, difficult, and new. We are all working to innovate new services and ways to connect with our community members.

So it was so great to find this article from the American Libraries journal, looking at strategies fore working outside.

Here is an excerpt, with a service I would LOVE to have from my libraries! You can read the whole article here.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, students at Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Christiansburg, Virginia, got books from their school library shelves. Now they’re getting them from the sky.

Thanks to an idea from MCPS middle school librarian Kelly Passek and a partnership with Wing, the first commercial drone delivery service in the US, any student in the district who lives within Wing’s delivery zone can request a book through the school system’s library catalog. Passek locates the book, checks it out, and drives it to the Wing facility, where it is dispatched via drone to the student’s home.

As the pandemic continues to make indoor library visits difficult for many (and impossible for some), Passek is just one of many librarians across the country who have turned to the outdoors as a means of putting books in the hands of readers.

“We’re not concerned with getting the books back right now—we just want [students] to read as much as they can possibly read,” Passek says.”

You can read the rest of this article here, to get more ideas about strategies for serving your community outdoors!