The Post-Pandemic Library Handbook

The Post-Pandemic Library Handbook provides an approach for re-opening, re-engineering and redesigning library facilities, resources, services and staff. American Library Association Past-President Julie Todaro developed this Handbook to provide a path forward for all types and sizes of libraries. She uses narrative and technical writing (with dozens of checklists, examples, recommendations and 30+ tables) to take a detailed look at where we are and where we need to be. Because no function, resource or service was left unaffected by the pandemic, chapters and tables allow readers to assign their own timelines to stages. Handbook chapters include: Facilities: Services, Support, and Storage Spaces; Collections and Resources; Assessment and Accountability; Human Resources, Critical Training, and Education; Communication during Emergency Events; Management and Organizational Design: Unique Issues; Leadership during Extreme Emergencies: The Pandemic; Pitfalls, Problems, Mistakes, and Failures; Service Access and Delivery; and, Public Relations, Marketing, and Branding. Appendices feature tools for operational and strategic planning; an approach for prioritizing current and upcoming pandemic information; and an annotated list of 28+ resources tracked during the COVID years to assist in updating data for background and decision making.
About the Author: Dr. Julie Todaro is the dean of Austin Community College (ACC) Library Services. Her professional career includes academic library manager; library educator (management, public libraries, ) and public librarian. She manages 200 employees at ACC who provide library resources and services throughout eleven campus libraries in 8 counties. Todaro is the author of the 2020 2nd edition of Emergency Preparedness for Libraries, the 2015 Mentoring A-Z, and the 2014 Library Management for the Digital Age: A New Paradigm. She co-authored the 2006 Training Library Staff and Volunteers to Provide Extraordinary Customer Service. Todaro is frequent presenter on a variety of topics and across all types of libraries, library settings and non-profit management, including three 2020 national webinars on libraries and the pandemic. She is a library consultant and in her practice serves as an advisor and project lead with expertise in all aspects of management, leadership, library facilities and operations. Todaro's association activities and leadership focus on all types of libraries and librarians. On the national leadership level Julie was the 2016-2017 president of the American Library Association (ALA) with an initiative focus on librarians titled Libraries Transform: the Expert in the Library and was the 2007-2008 past-president of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL.) On the state leadership level, Julie was the 2000-2001 president of the Texas Library Association (TLA). Todaro earned her DLS from Columbia University's School of Library Service, a MLS from The University of Texas at Austin ISchool (with a school librarian all-level lifetime certification). She was TLA's 1996 Librarian of the Year award-winner, received TLA's 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award and recently was awarded TLA's 2019 Distinguished Service Award.