DELIVERY RESTART UPDATE
Restart Date - October 19, 2020
We are just a couple of days to the restart of LLNJ’s Delivery Services.
Starting Monday, October 19, Delivery Drivers will make rounds to pick up all the items you have in your custody that belong to other libraries. Depending on volume, this may take them two or more days to accomplish. Normal pick up and drop offs will resume following the initial pick up runs.
All the materials picked up are taken to the vendor’s warehouse for sorting. Because we ship packets in clear plastic bags, the vendor or drivers will only be touching the bags not the actual books or materials that are inside the bags.
We intentionally did not prescribe protocols for the handling of materials received through delivery. As we stated before, we encourage you to follow your library’s and governing agency’s guidelines and protocols for disinfecting, sanitizing or quarantining your library materials.
Our vendor has trained and equipped their delivery drivers to take adequate precautions, including wearing masks, frequent hand sanitizing, and contactless delivery service.
Your delivery will be dropped off where you specified in your delivery restart form.
Your delivery days (MWF, TTH or Daily) will remain the same as before, unless you elected to reduce your number of deliveries per week. As we previously stated, you should expect to have a minimum of two delivery stops per week, even if you elected for one on your delivery restart form. If you are uncertain about what your new delivery days will be, please reach out to our office and we will assist you.
Delivery windows are between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day, just like they were prior to the pandemic. The vendor is unable to project a shorter delivery window. Once things settle down in a few weeks, we may be able to gauge a delivery pattern and a shorter delivery window.
We received questions from some of you, asking us to clarify the protocols for if/when a driver tests positive or a library is shut down due to an outbreak?
If a library must close due to an outbreak, we ask that the library should contact us immediately to let us know. Once we receive such information, we will communicate with you and the delivery vendor. We will also review our routes to highlight and notify the libraries that are in sequence with closed library, as well as the driver that serves the route. Our delivery is set up as a contactless service to minimize exposures.
If we receive notification that a driver tested positive to COVID-19, we will share that information with expedience. We will also highlight and notify all libraries served by the driver. We will work with the vendor to follow all required contact-tracing protocols. Once we issue notification that a driver tested positive, we would ask the libraries served by that driver to follow their adopted protocols for testing and quarantining.
Please know that LibraryLinkNJ is restarting delivery services with health and safety as our primary concerns. We stand ready suspend delivery services if your health and safety is in any way compromised on account of the service.
It is difficult to prescribe remedies for every “what if” situation. Each library is different; hence we encourage you to follow your library and governing agency’s guidelines.
We have done our best to plan, however, we are aware that there will be hiccups and bumps on the road. Please be patient with the process. A driver may show up and not be able to load everything at the same time. Please be understanding. Our first week may be rough, but ultimately, we will get back to cruising.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated as they help our planning and tweaking.
Once again, we want you to know that Delivery services will only be provided to the libraries who completed the delivery service restart form. The form is still available on the LibraryLinkNJ website. We will continue to add libraries to the routes as we receive the completed delivery restart forms.
Thank you again for your patience throughout the pandemic shutdown. We are excited to be back in the business of providing delivery services to you.