Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

While the library has been closed, the staff has been working on ways for patrons to access information, digital materials like e-books, audio books music and video downloads, and devising ways for you to stay involved through digital programming.

For example, in conjunction with Gov. Andy Beshear’s Healthy at Home campaign, we invite you to post on the library’s Facebook page — www.facebook.com/clarkbooks — pictures of yourself or your family reading at home. Include two hashtags: #CCPLHealthyatHomeReading and #HealthyatHome.

If you’re reading a digital book you checked out through one of the e-book platforms available through CCPL’s online library, get a picture of yourself with your PC or laptop.

Librarian Tamera Rehnborg said she’s been reading books to her grandchildren via Zoom.

There are a lot of ways CCPL patrons and staff have been using digital technologies and print materials to entertain themselves and to learn.

Let everyone see how you’ve been using the library’s digital services. We’re all learning a lot these days, and we can inspire each other to act thoughtfully and safely at home.

While you’re at the library’s Facebook page, scroll down through posts to find more resources and virtual programs.

Reference librarian Jennifer Mattern has started a new Daily Topics feature in which she bundles web links about different topics. Her first post dealt with online cookbooks, and featured a wonderful cooking series called “Pasta Grannies,” videos of Italian grandmothers creating their signature pastas.

Reference librarian Jeff Gurnee is posting CCPL PSAs. Two points he likes to emphasize are the library chat feature and the reference desk phone number still available to patrons.

If you need reference information, you can chat with a reference librarian by going to the library’s homepage, www.clarkbooks.org. In the lower right corner of the homepage you will see a violet circle containing a white dialog rectangle. Click on that circle, type your message in the chat box, then click on the white image of a paper airplane. A reference librarian will answer your question.

You can still place a call to a reference librarian at 859-813-2991. Leave a message including your contact information. Phone messages will be monitored a few times a day.

Got some good book recommendations? Tell us about them at the TBR (To Be Read) post, also on the library’s Facebook page.

Youth services librarian Misty Strain, one of the best children’s storytellers in Kentucky, is posting story videos on the CCPL Youth Department Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CCPLChildrensServices.

I know her story time families miss her, so if you and your kids would like to watch her tell a story, go to the Youth Services Facebook page.

Youth librarian Sarah King has created a Hogwarts University Virtual Experience for Tweens. It is also on the CCPL Children’s Services Facebook page. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you will love it. The train riddle stumped me.

These are just a few of the ways library staff are staying in touch with patrons and providing services while the library must be closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll tell you about other new features, resources and programs the library will provide.

I’d also like to hear from you. Feel free to email me at john.clarkbooks@gmail.com. If you don’t use Facebook, but you have book recommendations or stories about ways in which you’re staying healthy at home, let me know and I’ll pass them on in this column.

Stay home and stay healthy by staying connected to the library’s online resources and Facebook pages.

John Maruskin is director of adult services at the Clark County Public Library. He can be reached at john.clarkbooks@gmail.com.