My husband's company mandated using some vacation time during the first quarter of 2020, lockdown not withstanding, so I took a week of vacation, too. We explored nearby state parks with some day hikes, then cooked fancy meals for dinner.
In attempts to be present with students, we really pushed for virtual reference and I made myself available in our course management chat system, scheduled endless google meet appointments, purchased an increasing amount of eBooks, subscribed to an additional database, all while trying to help st...
I know I am not nearly the first to make the connection between the black plague of Luther's day and our current situation, but here I am reflecting after helping a student find that perfect reading for an assignment. "Whether one may flee from a deadly plague" Picture God's perfect timing w...
Cleaning public spaces and cranking my tunes - I remember [taking this picture] while everything felt so uncertain. Would we be open next week? How long would we be closed? After some reduced hours and early closures, we settled on an appointment only system, virtual reference, and curbside picku...
After making it through the rest of the semester, I turned to the season of conferences and managed my own disappointment at not being able to attend the Association of Christian Librarian’s annual conference. It was to be my first one and I had received a scholarship to go. They did a phenomenal...
Despite having a new plexiglass barrier between our desk staff and students, we did everything we could to bring our heart of service to the students and maintain some ‘normalcy’ by decorating for Christmas. We had a visual map of where all the study stations were and a giant STOP sign at the ent...
We spent the entire summer making plans for reopening, writing protocols for the institution, setting up crisis management plans, setting aside a “sick room”, spacing out all of our classrooms and study spaces to 6ft/2m “social distance”. Yeah, that poor word-choice was difficult to get back once...
More perplexing to me than toilet paper shortages, was the shortage of yeast in supermarkets everywhere. I scrounged message boards for news of where I can find this now seemingly “hot” item. As with other families, life under quarantine allowed ours to reclaim life’s simple pleasures like making...
In late 2019, a new coronavirus emerged and began to spread globally, causing a once in a lifetime pandemic. Personalizing the Pandemic offers a snapshot of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the professional and personal lives of theological and religious studies librarians, especially as they b...
