When the Museum closed its doors in March 2020, the library was left with full hold shelves, undelivered and unread books, indefinitely paused research for staff and visitors alike, and all the silence of a library one could wish for, with no one to take advantage of it. For six months, essential staff looked after the Museum’s collections, walking darkened galleries with flashlights, until slowly more staff were allowed back in the summer.
Union staff were recalled to the Museum en masse by August, at which point library technicians set about restoring order. Soon after, the public was welcomed back to enjoy The Met, and curatorial staff trickled in to begin their own private archaeological office excavations. Yet with social distancing and contact tracing guidelines very much in place, neither the public nor the curators could avail themselves of the library collection.
With staff back at work conducting research for exhibitions, the library’s immediate priority became restoring access to its resources. This required an entirely new set of policies (and complicated internal workflows—here omitted for the sake of the reader) to meet the needs of the moment. Many meetings later, Watson’s weekly curbside pickup began outside the library.
Socially distanced pickup of select library materials would be made available outside of Watson on Tuesdays and Wednesdays—those days when the Museum was closed to the public and only staff were in the building. Later, as each department determined the maximum, safe, daily occupancy of their spaces, the library extended pickup to the rest of the week, ensuring some measure of flexibility to meet everyone’s scheduling needs.
The familiar automated requesting system—run through the library catalog, Watsonline—would remain disabled for the foreseeable future, to prevent the placement of impossible requests. Thus, all staff requests would require direct communications—a return to simpler times! Apologies to anyone who sought materials from Watson’s many associated departmental libraries, which were precluded from curbside pickup for the sake of safety and social distancing.
For the first the time in the library’s history, staff would (officially) be allowed to bring their library books home. In hopes of protecting library books from some of the more unpleasant elements of commuting (and protect curatorial staff from their boundless appetite for unwieldy, oversized art books), The Met’s signature red bag was brought in, courtesy of the Museum’s retail team.
Bags of books ready and waiting to be picked up by curatorial staff. Photo by Jessica S. Ranne Cardona
Now, following a year of service, curbside pickup is slated to come to an end this fall. With visitor appointments in the reading room available three days a week, the library’s doors are open to staff daily. Curbside pickup has withdrawn into the library proper, where staff are finally once again welcome to roam, whether to retrieve their bags and say hello, or to bravely browse the stacks. Departmental library paging and office deliveries will soon follow. If all goes as expected, a few hundred curbside requests a month will expand to twenty to thirty times that amount, as experienced prior to the shutdown.
As it did for many things, the pandemic changed the way that Watson Library reaches and engages with patrons. Our various scanning services have been integral to this. We provide scanning services to three distinct groups: staff of The Met, outside researchers who are college age and above, and other institutions. Before March 2020, we were able to serve the first two groups in person, while we provided Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services—which include scans of materials and physical loans—to the third.
Librarian Amy Hamilton busily scanning books for researchers who can’t access the library in person. Photo by Dana Keith
Upon our closure, we had to pivot to an entirely digital landscape, which led to an expansion of our scanning services. Initially, we were unable to access much of our collection. However, Watson houses a sizable part of our collection in an offsite storage facility. Staff at this facility were able to provide limited scans to Museum researchers. As reopening has slowly progressed over the past year, we have been able to expand these services to now include outside researchers and other libraries.
Our Bookeye scanner, used to provide scans to patrons through ILL. Photo by Amy Hamilton
A team of three staff members processes and scans requests for outside researchers who do not have an institutional affiliation that would grant them access to ILL. Many of these researchers are people whose faces we were used to seeing in our reading room on a weekly basis. Those same three staff members also process and scan requests from Met staff who are working remotely and cannot access library materials themselves. And finally, the ILL team processes requests from other institutions. Offering these services has enabled Watson Library to continue serving our patrons despite the difficult circumstances.
Watson Library opened on June 3 for research appointments for visiting researchers. We welcomed ten researchers per day on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. After scheduling their appointment online, researchers received a confirmation email with their Met ticket, library policies, and a linked form to submit their book requests. All this was very different from the days when visiting researchers could request books via our online catalog, and visit the library as soon as we emailed to inform them their books were ready and waiting. Our first day open for research appointments was an exciting day as it had been 449 days since our visiting researchers had been in Watson Library. Library staff reconfigured the Reading Room for social distancing, set up overhead book scanners for researchers, and implemented cleaning and sanitizing protocols. Many of our visitors expressed how wonderful it was to be back at the library. In many ways, it felt like a grand opening, only missing a giant ribbon being cut at our entrance.
Watson Library will continue to offer research appointments through Friday, August 27. The library will be closed to visiting researchers from Monday, August 30 through Friday, September 4 as library staff prepare for our reopening on Tuesday, September 7. Starting Tuesday, September 7, Watson Library will be open from 10:00 am–5:00 pm for visiting researchers on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and 9:00 am–5:30 pm for Met staff from Mondays through Fridays. No research appointments are needed. We are beyond thrilled to open our doors and welcome our beloved researchers back to their library.
Our circulation technicians have witnessed many changes in Watson Library and the Museum over the years and have shared their thoughts on reopening.
Fredy Rivera, principal departmental technician, at the circulation desk. Photo by Jessica S. Ranne Cardona
Fredy Rivera, principal departmental technician, was one of Watson’s first staff members back onsite in July 2020. “It was completely different at first. Just the art and a few co-workers. It was interesting to see everyone and try to recognize them by their eyes. We had to learn to read by eye contact….It was good to see the staff and visitors. It will be nice to be fully open again. It’s a new era for Watson Library.”
Ren Murrell, supervising departmental technician, is ready for Watson’s full reopening. “I’ve got my roller blades, bottled water, and brain card catalog ready to go…I can’t wait to see everyone back. I miss the personal contact. There’s more than just books in this library.”
For more details on our reopening and services, please visit our library homepage, and please email any inquiries to watson.library@metmuseum.org.
