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Whistler Public Library reopens to limited in-person browsing this week

Browsing and holds pick-up will be limited to 30-minute windows, starting Oct. 29
Photo by Reactive Design : Courtesy of the American Friends of Whistler
The Whistler Public Library reopening to limited in-person browsing Oct. 29. PHOTO BY REACTIVE DESIGN / COURTESY OF THE AFOW

The Whistler Public Library (WPL) will allow patrons back through its doors this week for the first time since the pandemic began.

Beginning Thursday, Oct. 29, library users will be permitted to browse for materials or pick up holds in-person for up to 30 minutes, with staff on-hand to assist and a greeter at the entrance to help maintain occupancy limits.

COVID protocols will be in place, including a mandatory mask policy (masks will be available onsite), and no seating available in communal areas to mitigate possible transmission.

“We are super excited,” said library director Elizabeth Tracy. “Obviously this is core to what we do. We are here to serve the community, and while it has felt good from a distance to put materials in people’s hands … I think it’s also going to feel good for people to come in the building and choose their own materials, even if it’s for a short visit.”

At the start of the pandemic, several library staff were redeployed to other municipal facilities, such as the food bank, before being brought back on as the library ramped up its virtual programming and Library to Go services, which allowed patrons to reserve and pick up materials at pre-set times from the building’s lobby.

“Staff are used to connecting with people who are in pretty vulnerable situations in the community, but they’re also used to dispensing information, so it was the perfect complement to what they normally do,” Tracy said of the redeployment. 

The increase in online programming also came with something of a silver lining, Tracy said.

“Doing the Zoom or Facebook Live approach has really opened up a portal to create opportunities for people who may not have been able to attend in the past,” she noted, adding that, depending on how the pandemic plays out, WPL staff will consider the possibility of resuming in-person programming “as we get towards the summer and the weather warms.”

Even pre-COVID, the library was seeing steady increases in demand for its electronic resources, with 21 per cent more uses in 2019 than the year prior.

“As virtue of that, we increased the amount of funding out of the materials budget that we were putting towards the e-resources,” Tracy relayed. “Of course, that was very pivotal during this time and continues to be. What we’ve learned from adapting early and creating that virtual branch that sustained us from March until the end of May is that it is something that is going to continue to stick with us.”

According to the WPL’s 2019 annual report, which was presented to mayor and council last month, in-person visits rose 15 per cent that year, from 195,304 in 2018, to 229,884. Program attendance, meanwhile, increase by nine per cent, from 17,414 to 19,402, as did total expenditures, jumping 17 per cent in 2019, from $1,342,609 to $1,581,414.

Looking at the impacts to this year’s budget, Tracy said the library, which receives the lion’s share of its funding from the municipal and provincial governments, would “align with the rest of the municipality in terms of any hits to revenue or any belt-tightening we need to do to be good citizens in the community.”

The library is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and from noon until 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

For a full list of library services and health protocols, visit whistlerlibrary.ca.