Guidance for Public Service Hours for the FY2020 Annual Report

This message concerning the annual report required of public libraries was posted to NHAIS-L subscribers earlier this month. It is reproduced here for easy reference.

Another data element on the annual report which is directly effected by the current situation is Public Service Hours.  It is important to distinguish between hours when your library was open for business as usual, hours where you were not open to the public but still offering limited public service (such as curbside pickup of circulating materials), and hours where you were entirely closed to the public.  Please record your hours in one of these three categories:

 

  *   Public Service Hours - These are the hours that your library is completely open to the public for business as usual.

  *   Limited Public Service Hours - I will add a local question to the annual report for limited public service hours.  This is where you would record hours where the library was closed to the public, but still offering limited public service, such as curbside pickup of circulating materials.

  *   Closed to the Public - I will add a local question to the annual report for hours that the library was closed to the public due to the current situation.  This will include hours that some or all staff report to the library building to work on projects, answer the phone/email, etc., but the library is not offering even limited service to the public, aside from maintaining online resources.

 

Again, for now, keep hours that the building was open for normal operations separate from hours when the library was operating under limited public service or entirely closed to the public.  I can't stress that enough.  As I receive additional guidance from IMLS and my fellow State Data Coordinators, I will relay that information.

 

Record all of your different hours separately in a spreadsheet, as you might get a chance to use those numbers in the many surveys State Data Coordinators will put out and other researchers will be asking for participation outside the Public Library Survey (national), when we start asking how your library served the public during the stay at home order.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about these guidelines.

Tim Rohe

Reference Librarian/State Data Coordinator

New Hampshire State Library

603-271-2060

603-271-2144 (Reference Desk)

Timothy.Rohe@dncr.nh.gov