And I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done.

As an academic librarian at an institution that serves a population with technology inequity, food uncertainty, and home insecurity the “remote” instruction model is going to be very trying for many. Trying to decide what to do for the students to help them the best we can was a group effort.

At first glance, we have already established library chat (24/7 QuestionPoint). During our regular reference librarian hours, the same librarian will be there to assist students. A colleague suggested Google Voice and I set that up and I am already a fan. On Thursday of last week, I blasted out a text message to students who were set to get Chromebook loaners. Even though I sent a much more thoughtful email, 14 out of the 17 students I sent a text to responded back to me within minutes. 

We have a gaggle (rafter, murder, colony, caravan- I am into the names of groups of animals) of part-timers who have off-desk hours and so a librarian put together a list of our disciplines and assigned librarians to reach out to all the faculty. Grouping them by area of study, another librarian (adjunct) created an email template, which we used (tweaking a bit, of course, to be more personal) to send to the faculty.

A lot of streaming services, databases, and ebook providers are offering free materials to students and faculty- this is great. I think it is too much for many faculty to weed through to find what they are looking for, so one of our librarians (another adjunct of course) pulled our course reserve list of physical books and we will check these services (Redshelf, VitalSource) to see if it is available and let the instructor(s) know. 

The librarian who created the spreadsheet of disciplines and assigned librarians to those instructors also created a rad libguide, which has been sent to the faculty, staff, and is multiple places for students to view. Here is the link https://libguides.contracosta.edu/site/COVID19

Last week, I was on nine Zoom meetings and I was only working from home for three days. I am still fairly new in this position and up until the middle of last week didn't know some of the major players on campus except by name. On Friday, as I waited to check out Chromebooks to students, I was with my dean for most of the day. It occurred to me that we are all doing what we can with wherever we are mentally and emotionally during this crisis. I understand procedures are important, but I think in times like these if you are accountable, it is fine to "shoot from the hip," and if you can justify why you helped a student this way or that or waived this fee or whatever it is cool beans.

A colleague used the (Simpsons) term crisistunity. I think that the rally and general rad-ness of our library are showing that as a branch of our institution we are doing our best to make lemonade. 

Lately, I have been really interested in changing the narrative with academic librarianship in that I don't want to be right, I want to create and cultivate a connection, which students/staff/faculty come to me (us-library) for support. We have no agenda. We are just here to help.

Now a side note- I think I am going to start posting to Medium. Not trying to get all Hollywood on y'all. This blog won't be going away. I think I am going to change platforms for awhile.
My personal blog SuperAwesome will still be on Blogger.
Stay safe.