Greetings to all of you from the new remote site of the Gutekunst Public Library!

In the last week, we’ve ceased curbside service out of consideration for our staff and patrons, turned down the heat and buttoned up the building, and sent Rosie the Cat to live with library board member Buffi Honeck. I brought home all of the houseplants and my old laptop and the dogs and I are holding down the library fort. We already miss all of you.

These are challenging times. There is no denying that. However, your friends at Gutekunst are going to try to bring a little light to the darkness. We’ve tried to embrace being “the living room of the community” and we will continue with that goal.

We know that many of you are already familiar with Bridges, our online collection of nearly 100,000 downloadable audio and e-books. The Bridges team is working hard to add more content to fill the need of more and more people using the service. We also know that many of you much prefer to have the “book in your hand.” For those of you that have been reluctant to “go digital,” we will provide tutorials on social media to get you started (once you’ve read through all of the paper books in your house).

For those of you learning how to school your children at the kitchen table, we have a number of ways to support you. Check out our website at www.statecenter.lib.ia.us for our Credo and Gale research resources under the “Online Resources” tab. Click on the green “Search Catalog” flag to access brand new resources like Tumblemath, Tumblebooks Library and Teen BookCloud.

I must admit, I’m in a steep learning curve with all sorts of options like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Go-To-Meeting. I’ve participated in several of these online formats, but I’ve never administered them. However, this is my chance to learn. Once I’m up and going, watch here in the column, in our weekly e-newsletter or on our Facebook page for links to online book discussions and story times. We are excited to learn how to stay connected with you.

If you have any questions or would like to set up an account for the first time, email me at maraedler.lib@gmail.com .

We’re all in this together. Take care of each other.