Pandemic Prep

[writerkit]

siderea's essay having nudged me into taking some actual action, I went to the grocery store. Since I had had a fairly mild flu relatively recently I am now about to have an exhausted collapse because I went out and wandered around.

I started on my pandemic prep shopping. I think the only way pandemic prep is going to get done for me is haphazardly-- I'm going to go to a grocery store with a list, get perhaps half the stuff on it and some stuff that wasn't on it but seeing in the store made me realize is a good idea, and I'm going to continue repeating this at intervals until things collapse enough that I can't go out. I do need some kind of long-term preservable answer to "vegetables" that works within my dietary restrictions, though. (Something besides canned pumpkin and pickles.) But the trick to getting any of it done at all is going "You don't have to do all of your prep on this shopping trip; something is better than nothing" and accepting that for me, it's going to be "something is better than nothing" right up until the point where all of the something I have done now has to be good enough. Ideally I will have time for somewhat more "something" than I currently have done-- but I think that's going to be true right up until it happens.

I am going to be going to work unless I get sick or the library actually *closes*, though, in part because my job can't be done from home and in part because there are going to be a *lot* of people who need reliable information from a source they can trust, and that's, well, us. (Honestly, at some point in the future I'd like to see libraries as a group having an emergency preparedness plan where even if the library itself is closed we can still take shifts on phone reference using some kind of call forwarding; we could do a *lot* to help people stay calm and get good information in a crisis that way, especially since most of reference is done with the internet these days. About all we lack from a home computer setup, for phone and email reference, is the physical books themselves-- which are rarely used for reference-- and any database that requires you to be physically in the library. We could probably set up a staff card so people taking the shift could get into any database for "this library's patrons only". And we've now established that at least one major brand of integrated library system has a web portal so we could even renew books that way, overriding ordinary renewal limits since there's really no point in not having it renewable until the library's open again.)

Comments

[siderea]

Honestly, at some point in the future I'd like to see libraries as a group having an emergency preparedness plan where even if the library itself is closed we can still take shifts on phone reference using some kind of call forwarding; we could do a *lot* to help people stay calm and get good information in a crisis that way,

An extremely basic form of this could be set up, tonight, on Google Voice. You could start advertising the phone number to patrons immediately, put it on the website. I have some thoughts about how to do this, if you want.

About all we lack from a home computer setup, for phone and email reference, is the physical books themselves-- which are rarely used for reference-- and any database that requires you to be physically in the library.

The usual technological solution to the "have to be physically in the library to use this asset" is something called a VPN, which is standard in most companies that have remote workers, for exactly this problem. When you connect to the internet and turn on a VPN, you basically route all your traffic through the building in question (or it's representative server, wherever that is) so it looks to outside things like you're in the building. Do you have an person responsible for IT functions that might have something like this up their sleeve?

[writerkit]

Oh, the problem with doing this is not technological; it's bureaucratic: most libraries operate such that the *only* person who has the authority to get something like this set up is the director, who is very, very busy because they are also the only person with the authority to do a great many other things very essential to continued functioning. (Yes, this means if the director is ever incapacitated or absent things fall apart *very* quickly. Yes, this is bad.) For something like "do reference from home when the library is otherwise closed" one probably also has to involve town hall and if working in a union library, probably also the union.

[squirrelitude]

Could you still have the library open, but not allow patrons in, and just advertise a phone number & email address on the door?

[squirrelitude]

For groceries, is there anything you would want to order in bulk? We generally place orders at Neighborhood Produce, a small grocery store in Somerville. I'd be happy to talk with you about logistics, if you think it might be useful.

[writerkit]

Probably a possibility-- one of the things I read somewhere is some libraries closing the bulk of the gathering but still maintaining open hours where people can come in a few at a time just to the lobby to pick up their holds.

[writerkit]

I don't know. I can't *eat* most of the things that one would order in bulk, is the thing-- like, beans are right out. I have some ability to store things, since my room is pretty large, but other than rice and flour I can't think what I'd want to order.

[squirrelitude]

Ah yeah, our diet leans pretty heavily on legumes. We do get a bunch of other things, though: Olive oil, millet, pasta, sunflower seeds, pepitas, even tortilla chips and chocolate chips. But it sounds like a lot of your calories come from produce, maybe?

Canned vegetables can be pretty uninspiring, but might be good for stews.

A lot of it might come down to making bread and delicious things to put on it. :-)

There's a farmers market Saturday morning at the Armory where you can get carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes and other root vegetables, and those can be stored for months in a cool, dark place with moderate humidity. (I've previously used a big cooler stored in the basement.) They also have salami, which can be stored at room temperature but would only be good for variety. And cheese... I *bet* that cheese can also be stored in a cool place, but haven't done research. And eggs can usually be stored on the shelf for several weeks without going bad.

[writerkit]

A lot of my calories come from starch and cheese, but I generally do supplement that with meat and regular infusions of produce, yes, enough so that I'll notice if I can't get produce. Eggs I am pretty sure I'm allergic to.

I keep meaning to visit that farmers market and keep failing to actually pull it off. Carrots are in the "can't have" category, but sweet potatoes are nice.

[squirrelitude]

I'll be going over there some time tomorrow, if you wanted to go at the same time. It runs from 9:30 AM to 2 PM and I usually go around 11 AM.

Sweet potatoes keep basically forever. :-)

[writerkit]

Thank you for the offer, but I *really* need to rest tomorrow; I've been prepping basically all week and I'm super done-- tomorrow is for taking stock of what I have and what I might still need and otherwise lying down.