Just like your favorite restaurant during these pandemic days, the Morgantown Public Library system is now offering takeout fare to feed your head.
Well, OK — it doesn’t have to be all “serious” and intellectual, said Corina Chang, the system’s marketing manager.
Maybe it’s one of those guilty pleasure books you’ve been wanting to read, now that you still have COVID-19 downtime in your day planner.
The library on Tuesday turned the first page on its new curbside service at the main facility on Spruce Street and other branches across Monongalia County.
It’s a safe, social-distancing way to curl up with a good book — scholarly, silly or otherwise — Chang said.
This story is easy to follow, she said.
You call ahead, and place your order.
You roll up to the branch, after your title is available.
You have your selections handed right to you at the driver’s side window — by a staffer done out in a mask, the gloves, everything for safety.
Visit www.mympls.org and the “News and Events” drop-down menu for all the details, she said.
The library has been a digital destination of choice during the pandemic, Chang reports.
To date, the volume of digital checkouts is 58% over this time last year, she said.
E-books.
Audio books.
Music.
Genealogical resources.
Sarah Palfrey, the director of the library system was first surprised at the spike in audio book titles, as she associates them with people behind the wheel listening while motoring.
And for a time, she said, people weren’t driving anywhere.
However, she said, if you don’t have a road — you still have a rail-trail.
“People have been taking books for walks,” she said.
They don’t even care, the professional reader said, if they already know what happens on the last page.
“ ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ has gotten popular again,” she said.
There’s a reason for that, she said.
She knows the story.
It’s nice getting reacquainted with the characters in a book you’ve read more than once, the library director said.
Such familiarity through words and narrative is comforting, she said.
Especially in relation to real-life, where the plot changes by the minute.
“A good book,” she said, “is a good friend.”
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