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Mar 23, 2020 Message to Library Friends

Posted at 16:51h in General by
1 Like

We will continue to help our faculty with their teaching and research and our students with learning. We will be answering reference questions, providing access to online resources, and connecting faculty and students to information. We may be doing our work from a different place, but we will still be here for students, staff, faculty, and researchers, fulfilling our mission to be “All U Need.”

Dear Friends,

I hope this note finds you and your family doing well. I wanted to let you know what is happening at the Marriott Library.

Last week was certainly one that we will all long remember, with both COVID-19 and an earthquake with aftershocks. Beginning on Monday, March 16th, the library shortened its hours to 8 am to 6 pm and operated with a skeleton crew. Only floors one and two were open; access was restricted to users with a university ID. By the end of the week it was clear that even with all of the safety precautions we had in place, with the growing concerns about the pandemic, we could not fully protect our employers nor our users while staying open in even a limited capacity. We closed at noon on Friday.

That closure was difficult. Libraries have long prided themselves on being a social equalizer, serving a role to provide access to technology, resources, and services no matter one’s financial situation or social status. With the COVID-19 crisis, libraries are finding themselves in a unique position where it is now more important to protect the health of the community than to serve that community as a social equalizer.

Last week the American Library Association Executive Board called for the closure of all public and academic libraries, stating:

Libraries are by design unable to practice social distancing to the degree recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health authorities. Keeping libraries open at this time has the potential to harm communities more than help. We underscore the importance and need to come together in this crisis and commit to ensuring our libraries, which provide so many important services to our communities, do not serve as vectors for a fast-moving pandemic.

We now begin the first week of teleworking for all library employees. We will continue to help our faculty with their teaching and research and our students with learning. We will be answering reference questions, providing access to online resources, and connecting faculty and students to information. We may be doing our work from a different place, but we will still be here for students, staff, faculty, and researchers, fulfilling our mission to be “All U Need.”

Take care, stay safe, and do a kind deed for someone. We are all in this together.

Warmest regards,

Alberta Comer
Dean of Libraries
J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah

2 Comments
  • Kellie Elder
    Posted at 20:53h, 23 March

    I am sorry the library had to close but I know it’s for the best I will be looking forward to coming back to work seeing all of the facility and staff.

  • John Barbuto, MD
    Posted at 01:36h, 24 March

    I like what you said about libraries. Perhaps that is a point rarely acknowledged, yet so true! If we all thought like libraries, rather than conquerers, “what a wonderful world it would be”! Perhaps, when the library re-opens, you could celebrate the “mindset” that is a library. A library is not a stale repository of past ideas. It is a vibrant opportunity to celebrate and explore ideas of all the world, diverse points of view, foundations for understanding, foundations for creativity. All of this occuring in a setting of peace, particularly in the presence of diversity.

    Great idea! Build on it!