DELAWARE - Delaware libraries have been working throughout the pandemic to serve the needs of the public.
Libraries have been helping people in crisis for years. The Director of the Delaware Division of Libraries (DDL), Annie Norman, tells WRDE, libraries have stepped up to serve the public after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the recession, and now COVID-19.
"How do we help transition communities from surviving to thriving?" said Norman.
Norman was a guest editor the Delaware Journal of Public Health's September 2020 issue on public libraries and public health.
"We are not first responders, we shut down immediately with COVID, but we did a pandemic pivot, where we are figuring how can we offer our basic services, and what we call our second responders service," said Norman.
DDL collected stories of the people they served for over a decade. According to an article written by the University of Delaware, the Division of Libraries then mapped the needs of Delawareans experiencing a crisis, and services in place to address the crises.
"The more we can develop these system of services across all these various urgent needs, the more the specialists can work at what they do best, and people will be getting the right type of service," Norman said.
The Unite Delaware tool is a network of social and health care providers that's paid for by ChristianaCare.
"If a librarian has someone in front of them in crisis, they can enter them into the system, and it works by zipcode, [to see] what organization serves this needs that's closest," said Norman.
And as many parents struggle to help their children go to school virtually, libraries are also serving the mental needs for children.
First Lady of Delaware, Tracey Quillen Carney, said "by having the Dolly Parton Imagination Library statewide, libraries also provide a great opportunity for parents and caregivers how to read with children in an interactive way."
When Unite Delaware was launched in November 2019, it only served New Castle County. Once the pandemic began, ChristianaCare Office of Health Equity and Unite Us started to recruit organizations in Sussex and Kent county.