Annual Report Changes: Open Hours & Weeks Open

I was reminded to remind everyone that all of my emails about the annual report end up on the NHAIS Notes blog. Along the side, where it says, 'Posts by Topic,' they will be under both ‘NH Public Library Annual Report’ and ‘Public Library Survey.’ David Harris is kind enough to forward me any responses to those posts, but it’s easier to just email me directly. Also, most of the text of these messages is from the annual report instructions.

Now, on to the changes. Under the section ‘Outlet Data,’ there are six questions; two are read-only: ‘Area in Square Feet of Outlet’ and ‘Number of Weeks Open.’ ‘Area in Square Feet of Outlet’ is the same as last year. If it changed, just let me know. ‘Number of Weeks Open,’ is a summation this year.

Before I go in to more detail as to why ‘Number of Weeks Open’ is a summation, you may notice that there is no longer a question for ‘Total Public Service Hours Per Year (Central & Branches).’ You only need to enter it for each location and IMLS just adds it up on the back end. When calculating the ‘Public Service Hours Per Year’ for each location, please remember to account for the hours in any weeks the library was closed, due to COVID or other reasons. Here’s where things get potentially controversial, determining whether the library was open or closed.

‘Number of Weeks Open’ is a summation this year. This is because I am being asked to separate out ‘Number of Weeks an Outlet Closed Due to COVID-19’ and ‘Number of Weeks an Outlet Had Limited Occupancy Due to COVID-19.’ These two are added to ‘Number of Weeks an Outlet Was Open With No Restrictions (pre-COVID-19)’ to get the total for ‘Number of Weeks Open.’ 

·        Number of Weeks an Outlet Was Open With No Restrictions (pre-COVID-19) – This is the Beforetimes; pretty self-explanatory.  2021 is another story, but let’s not worry about that yet.

·        Number of Weeks an Outlet Had Limited Occupancy Due to COVID-19 – I also think this is pretty self-explanatory. 

·        Number of Weeks an Outlet Was Closed Due to COVID-19 – This is where things get tricky. This is the number of weeks that the building was closed to the public. Unfortunately, IMLS has decided that offering curbside service does not count as “open to the public,” even if the physical exchange of materials took place within the building. If the public could not access the building for anything other than pick-up of reserved materials, the building is considered closed. This also means that curbside pickups do not count as “visits;” can’t have “visits” if your library isn’t “open.” I got some angry emails when I first announced this a while back. Again, I did not make this decision, this comes from IMLS. Also, please keep in mind that this is only for the purposes of the annual report.

If your library was closed for any reason other than COVID-19, such as renovations, it’s probably easiest to just give me a call and we can work out how to calculate what goes where, especially if that closure overlapped with the COVID-19 restrictions. I cover it in the instructions, but it’s easier for me to just do it for you over the phone. I can’t imagine that this will apply to too many libraries.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns; hate mail at least lets me know that people read the email, so that’s a start.

Tim Rohe
Reference Librarian/State Data Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library
603-271-2060