It’s Safe To Borrow Real Books Again

For the first time since Covid-19 hit, Polly Gulliver resumed a cherished activity: borrowing a hardcover book from the library.

Gulliver was among the first customers to hit the main Elm Street branch Monday as the New Haven Free Public Library returned to offline business after months of only online transactions.

It didn’t return in full. Thanks to eased pandemic restrictions, it could have welcomed patrons indoors. But in the interest of caution, it instituted curbside pick-up for readers like Gulliver who were hungry to resume holding actual books in their hands.

Libraries tend to be quiet places, but for the past several months of online-only services, the silence inside the New Haven Free Public Library has been eerie.

“It’s quiet. Empty,” Sharon Lovett-Graff, the library’s public services administrator, said with a half-smile. ​“We miss the customers.”

To Lovett-Graff’s relief, as pandemic restrictions ease in the state of Connecticut, the NHFPL has slowly been reviving. On Monday, it started lending physical books again through a new curbside pickup and drop-off program at all of its branches.

At the Ives Branch downtown on Monday afternoon, a gradual stream of readers and movie-watchers trickled in and out from under a blue tent by the building’s side entrance. Some were greeted by individualized brown paper bags of tomes they had requested in advance. Others came to drop previously checked-out books and films into a large metal bin.

According to Lovett-Graff, all returned books and movies will remain isolated for 72 hours before returning to library shelves, ensuring that they are virus-free.

Lovett-Graff ran the pickup station alongside security guard Jose Flores. They were joined periodically by a host of other librarians working at the Ives Branch.

At noon, Gulliver dropped by the station to pick up her requested bag of books: Nemesis and Cockroaches by the Norwegian crime story writer Jo Nesbø. She has wanted to read the two books by Nesbø, an author she loves, since February. She requested them at the library, but the pandemic-era closures posed a months-long roadblock to actually obtaining them.

The library shifted to online-only operations in March, offering new e‑books, music, and movies through services like Hoopla and running community events and book clubs on Zoom. Most staff were working from home until about two weeks ago.

While libraries are permitted to open with social distancing measures by Connecticut’s Phase 2 reopening, Lovett-Graff said, the NHFPL has chosen to be more cautious by starting up curbside pickup only. This is in line with the practices of other libraries across the country, she said.

As the NHFPL adapted, readers have changed up their routines in tandem. Some have found themselves with more time for literature in an era of social distancing. Others are facing more stress in their lives, finding less time or energy for leisure reading. With fewer opportunities to borrow physical books, some paperback readers have switched to e‑books; others said they’ve been watching more movies.

While waiting for the Nesbø copies, Gulliver said, she turned to ​“old favorites,” which she’s found to be comforting during a tumultuous few months. She downloaded some books on her Kindle as the library closed, which has some advantages at night. But she has missed reading from hard copies. ​“I love to hold a book,” she said.

For Lovett-Graff, books have offered an escape from the stress of the virus. Social distancing has offered her ​“a great chance to catch up” on the books she’d meant to read, she added.

City Librarian John Jessen said he has found it more difficult to read nonfiction during the pandemic. ​“I’m trying to find something that’s gonna make me laugh,” he said. Recently, Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls has done the trick.

Jessica Baker came to return Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self Regard. Having just graduated from Yale Law School, she is in the process of moving out of New Haven; ​“today is book drop day,” she said. After messaging the Live Chat feature on the library’s website, she discovered she could return the books at the curbside pickup station.

Baker laughed that she hoped there wouldn’t be any late fees. And there weren’t — all checked-out books from the NHFPL system have been automatically renewed until July 31.

The NHFPL has needed to adjust more than its book-lending procedures; as a gathering hub for the city, it’s needed to host events and build community online through video conferencing and social media.

Amid Covid-19, this mission of community has meant mindfulness sessions, book club meetings, and technology classes held over Zoom. It’s meant book recommendations offered by librarians over the phone — or in audio-recorded book reviews on the library’s website — rather than in person. It’s meant a community-generated Spotify playlist, to be played inside the Ives Branch Orchid Cafe when the library reopens.

The library’s summer learning program for children and young people has been adapted to a remote format as well. Margaret Girgis, who directs the library’s Young Minds and Family Learning, explained that the program has been updated to be remote — and more flexible in accommodating families’ varying priorities.

The initiative now offers incentives for kids to read over the summer, attend online speaker series, and encourage students to participate in socially-distanced activities like neighborhood scavenger hunts. Kids who complete enough activities within the summer learning program can win gift cards to local bookstore People Get Ready.

While community activities are remote and curbside pickup is outside-only, the library may soon open its doors to the public — at least partially. Depending on public health conditions, Jessen hopes the NHFPL will be able to allow limited indoor computer usage in a couple of weeks.

For now, the library is abuzz with requests for books. The books in this week’s paper bags will range from the bestselling (Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing) to the instructional (French: How to Speak and Write It). They’ll include the historical (Treasury of Egyptian Mythology) and the dystopian (George Orwell’s 1984). Lovett-Graff estimated that 40 new pickup requests came in on Monday morning alone.