If we were able to go to school normally, there would be five to 100 students in the library at any given time. Due to the current circumstances, and seeing as there are less than 100 students in the whole building in a  school day, the library staff has found ways for students to come to the school and pick up a book of their choice. Library media specialist Karen Kaznosky, library secretary Bradley Walton, and librarian Billy Martin have some information to share on how to check out library books during the ongoing pandemic.

“I’ll be sending out an email to the student body containing [how to check out books] in detail, but the short version is that students should browse our online catalog, “Destiny”, which is accessible from the HHS website, to see what’s available. Email me to request an item and schedule a pickup time. I’ll meet them outside of the HHS front entrance at the scheduled time to give them their item,” Walton said.

Not only is checking out books different than before, returning them has also become an entirely different system.

“Newspapers, magazines, and returned materials sit in a quarantine box for a week before we put them away.  [After lunch], I process and put away materials from the next day’s quarantine box, so that the box is empty and ready for the following morning,” Walton said.

Walton stresses that very few students come into the library these days, only one or two on occasion, but when they do, the school has taken extra precautions to keep everyone safe.

“If anyone does come in, the seating in the library is very spread out, and no more than 10 students are allowed in at a time. So far, that hasn’t been a problem. If anyone sits down at a table, that table has to be cleaned by a custodian before anyone else can use it. Tables have a green sign on them if they are open for use, or a red sign on them if they are closed and need to be cleaned,” Walton said.

The library has also come up with ways to make checking out books easier for students. Along with being able to check out normal books, students are also able to check out Ebooks.

“After a set amount of checkouts, the eBook will be removed from our digital collection. For each copy we own, only one user at a time may access the eBook,” Kaznosky said. “EBooks will be accessible from the Destiny site on the HHS website as long as the student is logged on and not browsing as a guest. We are unsure as to the length of checkout time as of now, but will have it on our site once we’ve spoken to representatives from Destiny.”