Local Library Services Available During COVID-19

Last Day of Reading Buddies - 2018

Public libraries may be temporarily closed to the public; but that doesn't mean that services have stopped.  On the contrary, certain services have been ramped up to enable staff to continue serving the public - just from a very different platform.  Here are some of the services being offered by some of the local libraries around British Columbia.

Important Note:  Please do check out each library's event calendar as things change, update or transform; depending on  the size of the group, how much interest is shown and technology capacity.

Services offered by the Vancouver Public Library include:

• livestreams of Storytime every weekday at 10 AM via Facebook so that kids everywhere don't miss out and parents get a bit of a breather before the little ones lose interest and run off for the next interesting thing; whatever that may be.  
• BabyTime is live-streamed every Wednesday at 2 PM for 15 minutes on YouTube so parents get a chance to login and connect with other parents, learn new songs and fingerplays to do with baby, and have fifteen minutes of connecting with someone outside of their oh so familiar 4 walls.  
• All-City TAG (Teens Advisory Group) is now completely online and virtual meetings are held on Zoom.  Teens do need to register online.
• The Indigenous Storyteller in Residence, Nova Weipert will lead and facilitate a Sharing Circle via Zoom.  Registration is required.

Richmond Public Library is offering:

• Online English Corner - an ESL conversation program, extremely popular and fills up quickly.  The limit is 6 people.
• Reading Challenges in both English and Chinese until May 31st.  The Chinese challenge is so popular - the number is at 125 participants.  Should the RPL not be ready to reopen, they will set up another series.
• Cantonese book talk on AM1470 is still ongoing, but the recording is done by phone.  The talks are archived by the radio station and is accessible online.

At North Vancouver City Library:

• Weekly virtual English Corners are offered
• Video tutorials for language learning apps are being created
• Offering a virtual Persian Book Club
• They are looking into offering virtual parenting programs in both Persian and Mandarin.  Check with the library for more details.
• Offering storytimes/rhymes in Persian on their YouTube channel
• Trying to translate some materials on their social media into Persian
• Currently working on creating a list of free MOOC courses to learn English
• COVID-19 resource information links in other languages on their website.
• 
  

At West Vancouver Memorial Library:

• English Conversation Online are offered 3 times a week with about 20 people per session
• There is a COVID-19 Multilingual Resources page on their site

I really hope these links offer families and/or individuals, who are looking for something to do while at home indefinitely, some quick access to programs they might not be aware of or didn't think about before.  :)

Until next time!

#VPL #LibraryServices #COVID-19 #RPL #WVML #NVCL