With a high percentage of seniors and underserved families in our communities, we had a heavy emphasis on physical service in our branches. With that option unavailable, we had to remain relevant and support our communities. While the pandemic reduced our budget, we had the flexibility to invest staff and funds in digital resources and market them via social media and paid advertising. We also had to counter the perception that library services had ceased.

We created a “Your Library at Home” theme for our home page, which grew every week as our collections team identified more resources — including a new Spanish-language resource page. Some digital resources more than doubled their usage as our patrons read books, streamed movies, researched their family trees and more. We implemented a weekly email campaign (via the Savannah platform) to more than 100,000 patrons that generated digital engagement. We created a “Your 24/7 online library is always open” campaign.

The “Your Library at Home” concept keeps growing and we now have a YouTube channel with more than 150 original video programs, with more added each week. The bilingual marketing theme has evolved from “Your 24/7 online library” to "Rediscover Your Library Card" with an inclusive, "Wherever You Are, Whoever You Are" message, that successfully replaced the traditional Library Card Sign-up Month marketing program.