RUMFORD — The Rumford Public Library will reopen to the public on Wednesday, July 1. For the safety of its customers, the maximum number of users in the library at one time will be five, and visits will be limited to 20 minutes a person a day.

The guidelines for reopening have been established by Interim Library Director Susan Marshall based on recommendations from the Maine State Library Association and the Maine Center for Disease Control in order to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

“We are excited to reopen our services to the Rumford community while keeping in mind the health of our patrons,” said Marshall. She said library staff will disinfect and quarantine all materials returned from patrons a minimum of
three days before allowing those items to be borrowed again. Collection boxes will be placed throughout the library for users to discard materials that they looked at, but did not borrow, and those materials, instead of being returned to the shelf, will also be disinfected and quarantined for three days.

The library will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday. Staff will clean the library after 3 p.m. Special hours for seniors or people with compromised immune systems will be from 8 to 9 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Rumford Library Children’s Department, which operates on the ground floor of the library, will open to one family at a time, that is one family guardian and children in his or her household. The number of users in the children’s department will be independent of the number of users in the main library; therefore, they will not be able to go between the children’s department and the main library during a single visit.

Hours for the children’s department will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with visits limited to 20 minutes a family.

Hand sanitizer will be placed throughout the library for patron use, and visitors will be asked to follow the CDC’s guidelines by maintaining social distancing rules. Users should not visit the library if they are sick.

The library will continue to be open for curbside pick-up where patrons can place holds on materials by phone or through the online catalog, minerva.maine.edu/, and have them delivered at the library door or on the curb. RPL will only lend materials from its own stacks. Inter-library lending has not yet resumed.

For more information, contact the library at 207-364-3661 or visit facebook.com/rumfordlibrary/.