Mercer County libraries will be closed as of 7pm this evening

From the Mercer County Library System:

The Mercer County Library System will be closing all branches to the public as of 7pm March 16, 2020 until further notice. This is being done in accordance with federal, county, state, and municipal public health department suggestions to reduce congregating and flatten the curve to keep the virus spread minimal through social distancing to alleviate the strain on the health care system.

Last week, we suspended programming, community room use, and our home borrower delivery service.  We are now suspending all other in person visits to the library.  At this time, we will not be accepting and processing interlibrary loan requests and we ask that you refrain from dropping off donations.  All due dates will be extended until we re-open. All holds currently waiting for pick-up will remain available for pick-up for a week after we open.  Additional patron holds will not be processed at this time.  

You may continue to receive e-mail notifications that items have arrived for pick-up, but be advised those items will be available for one week after we re-open.  We strongly suggest that patrons suspend their holds during this period through our online catalog at www.mcl.org. If your card was set to expire during the closed period, we will extend your privileges until one week after we reopen.  Expired cards will then need to be renewed in person at one of our branches.  You may still receive a renewal notification during the closed period, as these notifications typically go out 30 days before the card would expire.

During this time, patrons can utilize the library in the following ways: While our physical branches will be closed to the public, staff will monitor our online services, such as our eReference email service and Facebook Messenger. Use our Virtual Branch to check out digital items such as eBooks, magazines, music, audiobooks, and movies. We offer web-based and app borrowing from eLibraryNJ/Libby, Flipster, hoopla, and Freegal Music. We also offer an extensive list of databases that cover a range of topics from language learning to homework help and much more. Both collections can be found on our website, www.mcl.org – just look under branches for the virtual branch and resources for the databases.

If you do not do so already, we invite our patrons to follow us on social media.  Look for mclsnj on Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and GoodReads.  We will post news, reading suggestions, and other updates via social media and our website.  We will also reply to direct messages on those services.  We will also continue to post to our blog, so if you have never read it, please take the time to have a look – the most recent posts are linked at the bottom of our website, www.mcl.org. We are also pleased to announce our newly launched YouTube Channel, which features storytime, songs, and craft videos for our younger patrons.  We will add more content for all patrons of all ages soon. Contact us via our virtual reference service – there is a form on our website, look under resources and contact.   Lastly, we ask that you all remain safe and healthy by following the advice given by medical and public health authorities, as we look forward to seeing you when we re-open. For more on Flattening the Curve, please see the Vox article on COVID-19 and social distancing: – https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation