#MPL Helping Hands
Throughout the 2020 Safer at Home order in Wisconsin, all nine Madison libraries were forced to close as the city was operating under an Emergency Response. During this time, countless library staff at all levels took on a variety of tasks outside of their traditional roles in order to serve the Madison community in the most impactful way. Much of this flexibility happened behind-the-scenes, so in an effort to capture these stories the Bubbler partnered with a handful of illustrators and posted weekly on MPL’s social media, sharing out as #MPLHelpingHands.
Below is a snapshot of those stories and the original social media captions, shared by staff and the artists who uniquely illustrated them each week. Huge thanks to Madison Public Library Foundation for supporting the project with a grant that allowed us to pay artists, many of whom lost income due to COVID-19.
Taylor W. Rushing
APRIL 4, 2020: While libraries have been closed, many of our hourly staff have been sent to assist other city agencies. Acacia can usually be found working as a Page at the Monroe Street Library, but she’s been using her experience in sorting materials to help process several hundred absentee ballots per day at the City Of Madison Clerk office. She’s been grateful for the kindness and willingness to help that she’s experienced from the elections staff. What does she enjoy most about the work? “It has been nice to feel helpful during these uncertain times.
Lesley Numbers
@lesleyannenumbers
lesleyannenumbers.com
April 11, 2020: Our patrons reaching out w/ gratitude & grace makes the daily challenges a bit easier to manage. Lately, a super group of library employees has taken on the task of transcribing and responding to voicemails left at reception and the reference desks. “For a lot of patrons, telephone is the only way they communicate with us. It felt important to do whatever we could to try to respond to their questions and concerns.” Not everyone left names, so MPL staff had to do some sleuthing in order to return some of the messages. They have resolved about 50 messages so far and are still standing by to respond to others until the redirected phones are properly up & running.
Rodney Lambright II
@rodgod38
behance.net/rodneylambright
April 18, 2020: We knew everyone would feel the lack of access to physical library buildings and materials due to COVID-19 closures. Current library card holders could access wonderful online resources like OverDrive, but we knew we needed to reach out to community members who did not have a library card. A team of Central circulation staff worked together to come up with the virtual library card, which allows access to online databases until June 30th. The response to the virtual card has been incredible, and clerks from all MPL locations have joined in to help process requests. In the past three weeks, over 1,400 virtual library cards have been issued.
Rachal Duggan
@radillustrates
rachalduggan.com
April 25, 2020: Kathy, the Outerlibrary Loan librarian is missing hunting down books, microfilm, CDs, movies and more for library users, so she figured out a way to help people while working from home. Kathy found the National Emergency Library, a collection of books that support emergency remote teaching, research and independent scholarship while universities, training centers and libraries are closed. They have suspended all wait lists through June 30. You may be able to find some titles there you might otherwise have requested through Outerlibrary Loan.
“It’s been inspiring and fascinating to see the national resource sharing community figure out ways to continue providing as much access to information as possible. -Kathy
T.L. Luke
MAY 2, 2020: The library's internal Engagement team has created a number of great ways for us to stay connected as a library family. Aside from Netflix Party movie nights and weekly zoom calls, they also proposed something a little more tangible. We are doing a postcard exchange, sending and receiving postcards each week. Every Monday participants are emailed 3 names to send postcards to and the names are rotated so everyone gets mail from someone new each week - it's been a great way to get to know people who normally would be spread out across our 9 locations! When the amazing team at Anthology heard about the postcard exchange while working alongside library employees at the City Of Madison Clerk office, they donated around 30 postcards to the effort! What are some of the ways you’re staying connected with coworkers while staying home?
Araceli Zuniga
@sleeplesstransgressor
sleeplesstransgressor.com
MAY 9, 2020: Madison Public Library partnered with local social service agencies to bring reading materials to individuals experiencing homelessness. To date, more than 200 high-risk individuals, including older adults and those with underlying medical conditions, have been moved to area motels. We hope these donations from community members and the Friends of the Madison Public Library will bring some joy, comfort, and entertainment to our friends in motels.
Brett Vosen
@brett_vosen
brettvosen.com
MAY 16, 2020: Library assistant Carrie Gostomski has a unique position within the MPL family. She’s a Multisite, which means she goes to different library locations to help out where needed. This position has given Carrie a unique perspective on how all the library’s moving parts work together. A week or so after the Safer at Home order happened, she was approached by Library Director Greg Mickells to help facilitate a Town Hall.
Carrie & Greg hoped having a time where all staff could be together and get the same information at the same time would be really powerful for staff morale. Traditionally, the whole staff only comes together once a year for the staff in-service. This meeting gave everyone the opportunity to see their peers from not only their own location or department, but stretching across all sites and divisions. Now we have the opportunity to do this once a week during an especially isolating and uncertain period of our lives.
On average, about 150 employees participate in the MPL Town Hall. “I could see people physically responding during the meeting (head nodding, smiling, laughing, showing off pets and babies). I'm hoping they felt more in control of their work and personal lives afterward.” -Carrie G.
Lauren Lauter
@being_there1
lauren-lauter.squarespace.com
MAY 23, 2020: Curbside Pickup began last Monday and we’ve already seen an outpouring of support and excitement from our patrons! In just one week we’ve:
Completed 1,458 curbside pickup appointments
Check out 5,397 items
Received 57 CSA-box requests
But even more important than the numbers, are the ways in which our staff have been supported & been able to show support for all of YOU. Whether it’s the Lakeview library patron who donated 12 cloth masks in ziploc bags, bringing literal tears to a clerk’s eye or the mother who said “You have saved my children!” we know it’s these moments of connections that keep all of us going.
Selia Salzsieder
@seliasalzsiederart
seliasalzsieder.com
MAY 30, 2020: Being spread throughout the city in 9 different libraries we rarely have the opportunity to connect and work with people outside of our libraries, departments, or traditional roles. The COVID-19 Safer at Home order has resulted in 25+ working groups around various topics as well as virtual webinars and discussions where folks who haven’t been able to work together now have an intentional purpose/place to collaborate.
One such group was created by a number of the Library Security Monitors who formed a book group around the work White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.
They even had help from other library staff in hunting down enough copies for the 9 Library security guards who are participating– this wouldn’t normally be tricky (ahem we work in a library) but because of the safety regulations we weren't been able to access the physical collection in the library at that time. So other staff offered to lend and deliver their own personal copies to their coworkers' homes. This all happened without prompting from management in any way. It’s encouraging to see staff of all levels using these uncertain times to build on their own equity work and focus their efforts on reopening someday as an even stronger library.
Lauden Nute
@americantrashcorp
laudennute.com
JUNE 12, 2020: The Madison Public Library Staff is an incredibly unique and diverse bunch. Some are parents of newborns, some are parents of "kids" that now have their own kiddos. Some are caregivers of others -- their parents, siblings, or even foster children -- while others care for individuals with disabilities and differing needs. Our MPL Engagement team has been working hard to do more than just recognize the challenges they face at this time.
They strove to offer specialized care and resources to staff that are parents and caregivers during this time. Even amidst the chaos and challenges, it's so special that so many family members and loved ones get to see and experience the amazing care MPL employees put into their work each and every day.
One sweet Librarian Yesianne Ramírez-Madera shared with us was how her little daughter has been overhearing her on lots of work calls and zoom meetings and eventually started picking up on some of the lingo such as "scheduling and agendas." Without her mom knowing, she created a very detailed schedule for herself that she asked to send to her teacher.
Additionally, the older kids of some staff who are teens are volunteering their time to host "zoom-sits" where they offer up a virtual activity once a week like drawing together or playing an instrument and invite a small group of younger kids to join in virtually. This brief moment allows parents a minute to tackle laundry, cook dinner or even wrap up a few emails with less interruptions.
Lania Sproles
@laniasprolesartist
laniasproles.com
June 27, 2020: The Dream Bus originally launched in 2019, beginning its delivery services about a year ago. The initial goal of the Dream Bus was simple: alleviate some of the barriers in accessing library services for neighborhoods and communities that experienced them.
>> Fast forward to the Summer of 2020 and there’s a whole new batch of ever-changing challenges our community is facing. We doubt those who envisioned, funded or filled the Dream Bus ever thought it would be utilized as SUCH a necessary resource during a global pandemic.
As much of our in-person programming has been put on hold, the mobile nature of the Dream Bus allows MPL youth librarians (thank you Rebecca, Robin, Tracy, and Janelle!) an opportunity to safely engage with youth & families as they stop by MMSD School Lunch Pick-Up sites. Folks can pick up a #WeReadMadison bag (filled w/ activities & information about other active library services!) and check out books directly from the Dream Bus. The Dream Bus is a partnership between Madison Public Library, Dane County Library Service and Madison Public Library Foundation.
Owla
July 18, 2020: On a Tuesday during curbside service hours, Sequoya Library’s ceiling sprang a big leak —right above the adult nonfiction shelves. Thanks to the quick actions of staff members on site, particularly Administrative Clerk Emer Gallagher, hundreds of books were taken off of the shelves and saved from water damage. All told, only a dozen books were lost. MPL's maintenance crew then made sure the leak got fixed and the water got cleaned up pretty quickly. Thanks to the efficiency of the skeleton crew in the building, all the books were checked for damage, re-organized, and re-shelved without any interruption to curbside service.
Will Santino
@will_santino_illustration
willsantino.com
August 1, 2020:
Tree Cookies are slices of tree trunks that can be used as outdoor storytime sitting pads, portable table tops, leap frog lily pads—or just about anything you can dream up (thanks for the inspiration Olbrich Gardens Youth Services Staff!).
To create our very own Tree Cookies, Hawthorne staff contacted Kristin Mathews, the City's Parks East Supervisor, who enlisted the service of three arborists in creation and delivery.
Mateo Vargas-Nuñez helped library staff transport the giant Cookies to a safe spot inside the library. Elated Hawthorne Library staff are already dreaming of ways to put them to fun use as soon as we can safely gather together again in the Mural Alley/Hawthorne Pocket Garden space behind the Hawthorne Library. Thank you Andy Ayers, Neil Pischer, Scott Franchi, and Kristin Mathews for making this little dream of ours a reality!
The City has an agreement with Wisconsin Urban Wood that we provide them saw logs to repurpose wood when possible. The large trees for this project were Ash from Owen Conservation Park that were removed due to the EAB policy.
Maia Chen
@mahoganyqueenart / @ohsweetsorrel
sweetsorrel.com
August 8, 2020: When the pandemic first closed libraries, our staff truly came together as a unit to get services online and books to the public. Some staff stepped out of their normal jobs to help support the city with primary voting in April and again when compiling necessary research related to COVID-19, while others redirected their efforts to take on new projects within the library or to go above and beyond to serve our wonderful patrons!
This included things like creating a virtual library card, bringing reading materials to families experiencing homelessness, working curbside pickup or public computing shifts, getting the Dream Bus back on the road and more. One goal we had was to be thoughtful while our physical buildings were closed about how we could improve what we do from the inside out. We have a voice and that voice speaks up for racial equity, LGBTQ+ rights, literacy, access to resources like WiFi, and community engagement. #MPLHelpingHands is about what we can do for YOU and what we all can do for each other. We hope these illustrations have brought some joy into your quarantine - we know they have for us! Thanks to all the artists for bringing your creativity to this project, including the artist behind this illustration Sweet Sorrel.