Be Calm

Two days ago, I thought had my bookworm all planned out.  Then last night I read a director thread on the Coronavirus, which led to some internet searching.  Now I find myself staring at the screen, fretting over what to write and trying to keep my hands away from my face. 

This week has been a little rough for me, no illness, just a feeling of being overwhelmed, I think it is an age issue. I mean seriously, what is it about getting older that makes time fly by?  I can remember when time seemed never ending and now I find myself falling victim to that meme.  You know the one, “I love how being an adult is just saying, “But after this week things will slow down a bit again” to yourself until you die.  I have mentioned this meme before, I don’t want it to be true, but boy, sometimes it is just cold hard reality. 

My original idea was to turn this time factor into a plug for our genealogy club.  We had our first meeting last week and really had a great time!  I wanted to talk about slowing down enough to share our stories.  We discussed the Tell Me a Story project at Midwest Genealogy Center, an initiative that provides the ability to record and preserve memories, stories, and living history of residents in the Kansas City metro area. Such a cool idea, and with the technology most of us have available there is no excuse for us not to conduct our own Tell Me a Story project with our love ones.  We also discussed the urgency of writing down what we know, the first step in genealogy research.  Yep, time it rolling by fast, write it down while you can. 

So there, I got my plug in, but the C word does not look avoidable.  Toilet paper, Lysol and germ-x are gone from the shelves.  Good grief, Tom Hanks has it, 2 NBA players have it, the NCAA has made March madness really mad, only players, no fans.  It has been slow here at the library, the reported case in St. Louis and Johnson County, KS, seems to have changed the game.  I think humor had been used to downplay and hopefully prevent any hysteria, but now we are getting a little more serious.  One library I know shared a statement that started with another meme reference, “Be calm and wash your hands”, I agree with both those ideas, but like that library, I want to reassure our community at the same time. 

We will continue to serve our community while maintaining the safety and health or our staff and public.  At tonight’s board meeting we will be going over some policy for dealing with an extended epidemic.  We will continue to monitor the news and the recommendation of our health officials. 

I will now get my second plug in, use our databases.  We have TumbleBooks, Pronunciator, World Book Online, Hoopla and OverDrive.  Wash your hands, cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough, stay at home if you are not feeling well, and call us to renew your items or to help you access our databases.  Read, listen to music, watch movies, learn things, heck you can even use this time to learn to speak a new language, all these things without leaving your home.  Stay safe and healthy.