The Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main Street, will begin to reopen the library in stages in order to protect the safety of employees and patrons.

The first stage of the reopening will be from Thursday, June 4 to Saturday, June 13, with the library building remaining closed to the public. In the first stage, library employees will be returning to answer the public’s telephone calls and to handle the curbside return of library materials.

During the first stage, the library’s public service hours for answering telephone calls and for the curbside return of library materials will be the following:

Thursday, June 4, Friday, June 5, Monday, June 8, and Friday, June 12 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. and Tuesday, June 9 to Thursday, June 11 from 1:30 to 8 p.m.

To call the library during the above hours, call the library’s main phone number at 203-468-3890.

When the curbside return service begins on June 4, patrons should not use the library’s book drop, which will remain closed off. They should instead bring library materials to the back public entrance of the library building to be directed as how to return materials. Curbside return transactions will be entirely contactless for the safety of patrons and library staff. This means patrons are to wear facemasks as will library staff.

All curbside returned library materials will be initially quarantined for 72 hours. Only after the quarantine period will materials be checked in, thus returned library materials will still appear on patron accounts until after the 72-hour quarantine time is up, at which time materials will be checked in and taken off patron accounts. There will not be overdue fines charged on the materials returned.

The second stage of the library’s reopening, will approximately start the week of Monday, June 15 and will expand to permitting curbside pickup of checked out materials for patrons. Information on this stage will be released at a future date.

Since the library’s progressive stages of reopening the physical building with staffing and services are determined based on a number of public health factors, the library does not know fully know how the progression of its services, or our hours, will take place. Note that since the library building closed to the public on March 14, there has been much work to bring virtual programming and resources via the library’s website, www.hagamanlibrary.org, and the virtual library service during this pandemic period are to be considered as part of the library’s ongoing services. This is particularly important since summer programming will be taking place online for all ages (children, teens, and adults) given that programming will not be offered in the library building for some time.

The library is working on plans for stages of reopening in order to serve the public. Check www.hagamanlibrary.org for updates on the library’s progress, or call the library starting June 4 for updates. There will also be periodic announcements released in various media.