We know one of the main things our members are thinking about is whether and how schools will be reopening this fall. We will be sharing a lot of articles about schools working through this process, just to give some ideas about things your school might consider – good and bad.

This is an excerpt from an article with a lot of great pictures, about schools opening in Hong Kong. You can read the whole article here, and see all of their photos.

One of the main things I took from this – especially when looking at the images – is that there has to be a big infusion of money into the schools to get masks for everyone, to get all that plexiglass, to get those adorable (!) little cubes the kids can put around their desks, to get all the extra sanitizing cleaners, and to pay for the extra staff all of this is going to require. Without some really solid plans to make that happen, in-person school in the Fall seems like a dream more than a potential reality.

“When Hong Kong made the decision to reopen schools in late May, the coronavirus seemed almost entirely under control.

In early June, on the first day of class in Hong Kong primary schools after the coronavirus shutdown, there were new citywide sanitary protocols in place for schools. Things went surprisingly smoothly at Maryknoll Father’s Primary School.

Schoolchildren, in matching uniforms and face masks, lined up to have their foreheads scanned by a staff member wielding a thermal thermometer, then moved on to the next station, where they dutifully held out their palms for a squirt of hand sanitizer. While only masks were obligatory, some students went the extra mile and donned protective goggles.

To prepare everyone for the big day, the government-funded school had sent out videos that demonstrated how each step of the sanitation protocols for arriving students and asked parents to practice with their children….

“With the guidance of CHP, many schools had already been accustomed to measures like monitoring temperature and wearing masks. “The children understand because before COVID, they were used to wearing face masks during flu season as well as having temperature checks,” said Thelema Rigodon, a teacher at Tsung Tsin Primary School and Kindergarten.

SARS also led Hong Kongers to wear masks en masse. So even before the current pandemic, it was not unusual for people to wear masks when feeling unwell to prevent getting others sick. Almost two decades after SARS, residents didn’t hesitate to adopt a daily mask-wearing habit in 2020. In a survey conducted just days after the city recorded its first case of COVID-19 in January, three-quarters of Hong Kong residents said they were already wearing masks to go outside. Less than a month later, almost everyone – 97.5% – said they wore masks when leaving the house.

In May, when the government declared that schools could “resume their classes by phases in a gradual and orderly manner, there was a lot of paperwork to make sure the reopening would go smoothly.” Schools were required to send in their plans to keep students and workers safe. In addition, numerous hefty documents were sent to schools, including 18-page-long instructions about safety measures (for instance, certain classrooms would “need to have the setting of the desks re-arranged” so that children all face one direction instead of facing each other). And the authorities provided a sample letter to send to parents in case a child came into contact with a known coronavirus case.

To help schools cope with the expenses of additional demands such as deep cleans, the authorities disbursed HKD42 million (about $5.4 million USD) in one-time grants to virtually all of Hong Kong’s 2,200 schools, attended by almost 900,000 students…..

“Snacktime was a major operation. First, each student was given a plastic protective barrier that shields their front and sides so they could share a table with three others. Then, they took turns in small groups to be led to the bathroom to wash their hands, lining up in the hallway according to socially distanced dots on the ground. When they came back, a classroom assistant went around the room with a trash bag, and children discarded their masks carefully – touching only the strings – before receiving a squirt of hand sanitizer. Only then were they allowed to eat their snacks.”

You can read the rest of their article here – and I really suggest you browse through all the photos. It gives a great perspective on how much work this is going to be for us all!

I love this story!

And of course, as library people, your first thought should be “Oh no! Copyright violation!” But have no fear. First of all: it’s England and they have different laws. Second: this is an old book and, I’m guessing, out of copyright. So if this is something you want to do, or if you have a similar book/patron situation and want us to record some things for you, it’s certainly possible!

We are including an excerpt here, and you can find the whole article here.

“Librarians are recording an audiobook for a 102-year-old woman so she can again enjoy a story read to her decades ago by her “wonderful” father.

Doris Bugg wanted to reminisce with the 1927 novel Portrait of Clare, but the out-of-print book was unavailable at her library in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Touched by her memories, librarians bought a copy for her online and are reading all 873 pages, recorded on CDs.

“I was absolutely amazed at the kindness of them,” said Mrs Bugg.

Mrs Bugg regularly visited the town centre library in person until about a couple of years ago and continues to borrow audiobooks.

During lockdown she has received regular phone calls from library staff checking on her welfare and to chat, which is how they heard about the book, which was the first one she got from the library.”

We know that most of our members are in education, and thinking about the challenges everyone faces in trying to make the best plans for a safe process for everyone. But it’s not going to be an easy process. And there are bound to be some bad decisions made. So, we want to get ready for things as well as possible. Looking at some other plans can help your school and your library to make the best decisions possible.

We are sharing an excerpt from this article below, and you can read the whole thing here.

“As school districts across the country began to reveal reopening plans this week, parents and students were forced to grapple with a difficult reality: It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue.

Students in Seattle are likely to go to school in person only once or twice a week, officials said. Half of Omaha’s students will attend Monday and Tuesday, and the other half Thursday and Friday, rotating Wednesdays. And Fairfax County, Va., outside Washington, said students would spend at least two days a week in class, with the rest online.

The governors of Connecticut and New Jersey announced guidance that they said would allow students to return to school, but left the details up to districts, with Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey acknowledging on Friday that some schools would likely need to adopt a hybrid model and restrict daily attendance…

Reopening decisions are likely to vary greatly based on the size and density of districts, as well as region. In the South and West, where political leaders have been more eager to reopen their economies despite a recent upswing in coronavirus cases, school systems may be more likely to return to a full-time schedule, albeit with distance restrictions, new sanitation procedures and mask recommendations.

But for districts that hope to closely follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it would be nearly impossible to maintain sanitation and social distancing with normal school attendance. Class sizes in many schools would need to be cut by more than half. And while health experts generally recommend face coverings for both staff and students, some educators and parents say that is not realistic, especially for the youngest children.

Those complications are likely to prompt many districts — where administrators must decide how to implement the broad guidelines from federal and state health officials — to adopt a hybrid model in which students will spend some time in the classroom but a significant portion of the week at home.

Although that reality has been apparent to many educators for weeks, it is just beginning to confront parents. Some are finding out this week that their scramble to balance their own jobs with their children’s education and daily care will continue for many months, if not all of next school year.”

Welcome to Browsing Books!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype library system serving all types of libraries.

This season we are suggesting books you might enjoy for our Goodreads group: Armchair Travel to Minnesota State Parks. We give you a prompt connected to each state park, and you find a book to fulfill the challenge. You can use one of our suggestions, and you should feel free to read any book!

The land of Glendalough State Park was first purchased as a summer retreat, but On Earth Day, 1990, this largely natural and undeveloped property was donated to The Nature Conservancy. On June 10, 1992, the deed was transferred to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for use as a state park. 

Glendalough is home to abundant populations of white-tailed deer, raccoon, red fox, and smaller mammals. The park also offers excellent birdwatching for a variety of species of prairie, wetland, and hardwood forest birds.

A paved bike trail loop and numerous hiking trails, including two interpretive trails, meander along five lakes, through rich woods and blooming prairies. Wildlife abounds year-round, and there are many observation decks along the trails.

Mary  spent a great weekend here that was cold outside, but very warm in the heated cabin. 

For this reading prompt, enjoy the hygge feelings by reading a book set, at least partially, in a cabin.

We were surprised by the amount of scary books that take place in cabins, but we’ll try to suggest some cozier ones as well! 

We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!

Library staffers need to keep our collections fresh and up to date, and it’s a constant process to ensure we do a good job there.

Check out this excerpt from the American Libraries Magazine. You can find the whole article here. The authors talked about their presentation they made from the ALA.

“Julia Torres and Julie Stivers, teacher-librarian at Mount Vernon Middle School in Raleigh, North Carolina, began their session by reviewing factors that contribute to reading trauma: high-stakes testing, a fixation on what education systems consider to be classics, toxic or lack of meaningful representation, trauma-centered narratives, and shaming students for reading choices.

“If we’re measuring literacy growth only through test scores, we’re failing them,” said Stivers. She added: “We know how problematic some of the ‘classics’ are.”

To illustrate this point, Torres shared a chart of the New York State Education Department’s top 20 book titles read in its public schools (such as The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), of which a majority were written by white men and take place in historical time periods.

“A lot of these students don’t read these books because they don’t feel they relate to the lives that they’re living,” said Torres, who noted that the top books among her students this year were Long Way Down, The Hate U Give, and The Poet X, as well as poetry, manga, and graphic novels.

To interrupt traumatic practices, Torres and Stivers had several suggestions—the first of which includes realigning the role of the school librarian.

“Students are more important than books. We’re not gatekeepers of books, that’s not our role,” said Stivers. “I would much rather lose a book than a reader.”

Other interruption strategies included redefining what “counts” as reading and deploying inclusive programs and policies that emphasize diverse, reflective collections. At Stivers’s library, for example, she and her students created a set of guidelines for professional and collection development called the #LibFive, which includes tenets such as “Graphic novels and manga are not extra” and “Show the joy in our stories.”

You can read the rest of their strategies here!