Big news on the home front: our local libraries (kind of) opened for business this past week. In the before-times, we had a weekly routine of hitting up our local branch on Tuesday afternoons, after lunch and before Anselm’s piano lesson. I don’t know who enjoyed it more, me or the kids, but it’s one of the features of our pre-pandemic life that we have perhaps missed the most. We got in one last visit when Tertia was about a week old, and then: boom. Closed. No more libraries for us.

Now, I will say that our library system has been great in terms of offering other means of engagement with their services. They’ve done storytimes via Facebook live, upped their borrowing limits on Hoopla and CloudLibrary, and even offered a service where you can call a librarian just to chat, if that’s something you need. And amazingly, we could still check physical books out via phone or email. You gave the librarians some ideas as to what you like to read, and a few days later, a bag full of books would show up on your doorstep. I gave some broad topics for Anselm and Perpetua, and I have to say, they absolutely nailed it with their selections.

However, this left us with a bit of a problem. When the libraries closed, we had around twenty-five to thirty books checked out — not hard to do when you’re reading picture books and flying through Geronimo Stilton and Captain Underpants. Then we got our book delivery and ended up with around fifty-five books out at once, a family record, and one that quickly highlighted a problem: when our capacity gets stretched, we actually run pretty low on shelf space. I have a special bin next to the kids’ bookshelf where library books go, in an effort to make them at least a little easier to collect on return days, but it was full and overflowing. Around this time Perpetua discovered the box of baby board books I had stashed in the basement playroom and brought them up as well. I never thought I would be the one to complain about having too many books, but, well, here we are.

Or I should say: here we were. Because the libraries have started accepting returns! This is almost more exciting to me — ok, I lie, this is more exciting to me — than the fact that we can now make appointments to come and collect our sanitized holds. Which, don’t get me wrong, is also great. But it was a joy indeed when I got my pick-up appointment on Thursday and was able to drop off a large bag of books. The first to go were the ones that I found annoying to read — and after that, I just stuffed whatever I could fit in the bag. We still have a lot of books checked out, and our shelves are still crammed, but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. In a few weeks, they tell us, they’re going to trial letting people set foot in the library to browse, a few at a time. I hope I can bring the kids.

The libraries are open! The libraries are open!