People who regularly borrow books, movies or magazines from libraries have a distinct advantage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A free library card is the key to free knowledge and entertainment. It allows users to download audio or eBooks, stream movies, start a craft project, take a language class or research a family’s roots. Materials can be accessed from a smart phone, iPad, laptop or desktop computer.
Apply online for a library card here.
Now, 11-year-olds may apply for a free library card so they can use eResources. Previously, applicants had to be 18, said Suzanne Thinnes, a spokeswoman for Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The library system has 19 locations, including its Oakland headquarters, and 202,100 registered users.
On the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Facebook page, a new virtual story time for children and families launched March 27. There are two new groups people can join: CLP Creative Course Club and CLP Virtual Book Club.
At the Carnegie Library’s Facebook page, a video shows how to sign up for a card so that library users can access resources online.
If you have never read or listened to a book online, you can view tutorial videos to help you start.
Library buildings are closed, but 30 Carnegie Library managers are taking turns at answering questions daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through a live chat.
To ask a librarian a question, visit the library home page and click on the “virtual chat” button. More traditional ways to reach librarians are available, too.
“We’re still monitoring our central phone line of 412-622-3114 and the central email which is info@carnegielibrary.org,” said Jennifer Styran, assistant director for the main library and statewide services.
Tutorials on timely topics like voting, social distancing and help for nonprofits during these tough economic times are available at the Carnegie Library’s Eleventh Stack Archives.
After closing all of its 19 libraries on March 15, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh launched a Stay In and Read! challenge on March 23.
Between March 14 and March 29, library card holders downloaded 113,833 books in eBook or audio book format, combined.
On the week that began Monday, March 30, more than 2,100 people registered for the Stay in and Read! program, and logged 3,220 books. Librarians have logged 672 virtual chats since the service began on March 19.
Participants in the reading challenge can collect badges that can help them win prizes like journals, water bottles or T-shirts.
The library also started a civic engagement challenge.
“If you sign up for Allegheny Alerts or complete your census form or sign up for a mail-in ballot for the presidential primary, you earn your civic engagement learning badge,” Ms. Styran said.
Ms. Styran also suggests books to read at her blog.
On March 11, when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, Leslie Pallotta was observing her birthday.
But Ms. Pallotta, executive director of the Cranberry Library in Butler County, was thinking about how to serve 30,000 registered users who still want to borrow materials.
Her staff was prepared to take borrowers’ requests and work in assembly line fashion to fill them so people could pick up materials at the library, which is in the Cranberry township building.
State officials, Ms. Pallotta said in a phone interview, feared that approach would spread the virus so the plan had to be scrapped.
However, Cranberry library users can participate in the Big Library Read through April 13. The book is “Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic” by Michael McCreary and contains mature content.
Marylynne Pitz at mpitz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1648 or on Twitter:@mpitzpg
First Published: March 31, 2020, 11:30 a.m.
