Andrew Gerber

The results from LJ’s Fall 2021 Public Library Fundraising Survey demonstrate how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways libraries conducted their fund­raising. Like so much else in the library field, the pandemic forced library staff, administrators, and Friends groups to reconsider the best ways both to raise funds and utilize them.

Over the past 16 months, COVID-19 has forced public libraries to consider how to contribute to their patrons’ health and well-being. Anythink Libraries in Adams County, CO, has developed Renew, a new initiative designed to offer its participants both helpful programs and an online method of tracking their progress developing a lifestyle that is healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally.

As public, academic, school, and corporate library workers have been watching their workplaces close and striving to adjust to self-quarantining, medical librarians are facing additional challenges as a result of COVID-19.

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) can non-invasively find traces of chemical elements, offering clues about the origins of centuries-old paintings, manuscripts, ceramics, and stained glass. For example, researchers at the library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, a 1,452-year-old institution at the foot of Mount Sinai, Egypt, use x-ray technology to discover once hidden text and discover lost characters from extinct languages.