Despite only being open 51 full days last year, 257,420 items were checked out of the five branches operated by the South Central Regional Library (SCRL) over the course of 2020.

Director, Cathy Ching, says that's only about 40,000 less than the normal year of 2019, far exceeding her expectations for the past uncertain year.

"We were thinking that with limited hours and then we went to contactless pick-up for almost two-and-a-half months, we just didn't realize people were using our services as much as they were," she said. "My staff kept telling me that and until I saw the numbers...it was just incredible how people just switched gears and they continued using our services."

According to the 2020 annual report for SCRL, 65,917 people used its libraries and contactless pickup service. That's down from the 134,021 people who walked through the branch doors in 2019, but the library registered a boom in e-book checkouts up from 53,147 in 2019 to 80,204 in 2020.

As well, membership at all five branches grew by 854 to 29,091 in 2020.

Meantime, Ching says staff were able to pull off a few in-person events at the start of the year before the initial shutdown. As well, SCRL partnered with Morden Fire & Rescue to hold a successful fund-raising 45th Annual Book Sale in October just before the Code Orange declaration.

Support for the SCRL remained strong during this past year, allowing it to serve the public in new and innovative ways while COVID-19 restrictions closed or limited capacity at the locations in Altona, Winkler, Morden, Manitou and Miami.

"Local people stepped up and smaller businesses looked at us when they had some money to give," noted Ching, who also applied for a variety of local, provincial and federal grants. "What I did find was that the grants we applied for...while we may not have received a lot of money from a particular grant, all of them combined to make a really good foundation for us to continue with virtual programming, even if we can open up, our staff have been really good at doing virtual programming." Offerings through the Safe Inside Your Walls online program include storytime, cooking videos and newcomer tips, to name a few.

In addition, virtual programming allowed the annual summer reading program to move ahead in 2020. Over 900 kids took part, accessing online events and classrooms. Take-home kits were prepared for families who don't have Internet access.

Ching says the plan is to continue virtual offerings through SCRL and even expand them to include walk-through digital tours of local attractions like Altona's Gallery in the Park or the Miami Railway Museum.

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