Whatcom County Library System provides online services during coronavirus shutdowns
Despite shutting its doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Whatcom County Library System has continued assisting the community with online services available on its website.
The Whatcom library has ten branches with locations in Blaine, Deming, Everson, Ferndale, Lummi Island, Lynden, Kendall, Point Roberts, Sudden Valley and Sumas.
Before the branches shut down on March 16, hundreds of people rushed to their local library to check out material to read during the statewide ”Stay Home Stay Safe” order issued by Gov. Jay Inslee.
According to Executive Director Christine Perkins, on the weekend of March 14 and 15, community members checked out 36,513 physical items from all ten branches combined. The number of items checked out was seven times more than the previous weekend.
Once the libraries closed, community members were directed to the library website for online services.
“We have been getting significant increase in people signing up for eBook accounts,” Perkins told The Bellingham Herald. “In the first few weeks, we were up 200% in people registering for the Washington Anytime Library. We have seen tremendous increase in interest in our NewsBank product, which is an online tool to view various news reports from around the country.”
The 200% jump in online services used in March 2020 was in comparison to March 2019. The library’s free music streaming service, Freegal, was up 150%, according to Perkins. Additionally, 256% more people began using the free movie streaming service, Kanopy.
NewsBank, a paywall-free archive of local and international newspapers, saw the biggest jump in use as noted by Perkins, with an increase of 651%. In March 2019, there were 283 registered logins, which soared to 2,126 in March 2020.
“We’ve got a variety of tools (for homeschooling),” Perkins said. “The Tumble Book Library is particularly a fun one for kids. Not just for homeschooling but keeping people occupied and entertained. There are online children’s books at all reading levels that you can look at, turn the pages, have it read aloud to you. So you can help gain those literacy skills with the assistance of listening while reading, which is a proven technique for increasing fluency.”
For those feeling artistic, the library has added CreativeBug, which provides video instruction to hundreds of arts and crafts projects. CreativeBug has videos for knitting, sewing, quilting, crochet, pottery, drawing, painting and origami, to name a few.
“We’re also really aware of the people who don’t have internet access at home who are struggling to get access to information,” Perkins said. “We want to make sure that everybody knows our phone lines are open in the afternoon from 1-5 (p.m) every day. Our staff is on hand to answer any kind of question, Perkins said.
“We have been putting people in contact with unemployment insurance, helping read job listings to people over the phone, reading alcoholics anonymous from the big book, bible verses, you name it. Whatever people ask us, we will help them out with.”
If you are without internet access and seek assistance, call the Whatcom County Library System at 360-305-3600 anytime from 1-5 p.m. daily.