Last time we had enough snow and ice to require staff to clear sidewalks during our open-ish hours at the library, as I was carrying a small container of ice melt to spread where it always gets slippery, one of our patrons rushed up to me to see whether it was a new craft kit and almost snatched it out of my hands before I could answer. People really seem to like the kits I put together, so I must be doing something right. I told her one was in the works, but alas, I was just managing basic hazard mitigation that day.
Two days ago on Tuesday, I posted about playing catch-up on a grab-and-go craft kit for the library. Yesterday, I did manage to make a photo guide to post online to go along with the short instruction sheet I included in each kit. I shared it to a local news page, the library page, and a library crafting group. That was when I started handing out kits in earnest, too. Today, almost everything was gone.
Two dozen kits in a small town.
Poof.
Gone.
Miss M's kits for kids are always popular, too. She also works at another library in our district, but has spent almost two months just working at ours since the new COVID policy restricts staff from working at multiple locations. She recently learned that even though she gave specific instructions for handing out the district-wide kids' crafts, they had been piling up at her unoccupied desk there for the past 8 weeks. And that library wonders why they don't get the same stats we do. We aren't violating policy, we're just doing everything we can to maintain our community connections here, and trying to be creative in how we do it given our mandated limitations.
So library life continues, despite everything seeming so strange. I plan to try rebooting the library RPG day with a revised campaign on Discord or Roll20. How I can make it work remains to be seen, since internet access here is unreliable at best, and was completely down for several hours today across the area.
Shall I continue these anecdotes from daily life? I don't like it when my blog is just complaints and criticism of politics and economics, but I don't know what people actually read here when so many votes are automated. Comment below what you think, and mention capybaras for a bonus upvote!
Podcast suggestion: 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back. They cover bad books with tongue-in-cheek commentary. As I write this, they're covering Ready Player 2 by Ernest Cline, and his first book was their first subject, even lending its page count to the title. In between, there have been many other books of dubious quality. Enjoy!