The Washington Public Library is starting off 2021 with some new checkout services in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The library has only been offering curbside checkout services, but Director Bryna Walker says that after January 1st they will be allowing patrons to come inside by appointment only, “The additional service that I’m going to extend for this month is we’re going to go back to having some express browsing. So we’ll have a couple appointment times a day where six people can come in at a time and go through the stacks and pick books themselves if they would like. We call it grab-and-go browsing because it’s only 30 minutes and we’re trying to just limit the amount of people in the library so we can still do the social distancing and also continue to mitigate the virus.”

Walker says the staff still prefers to do curbside checkout to ensure that materials have been properly quarantined before being handled by new people. The library also offers computer, printer, and fax machine use by appointment only. You can find more information here.