With all the scary talk about the H1N1 virus, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep myself healthy in the face of the onslaught of germs that comes my way, especially during storytimes. 

I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a little note to the library’s published calendar that says something like, “Please help our community – and your children’s librarian – stay healthy, and don’t come to storytimes if either you or your child are sick.”  But I can’t come up with wording that says what I want to say in a way that’s friendly and kind, not obnoxious.  So for now I’ve followed the suggestion of a library patron, and bought an enormous jug of hand sanitizer that I put outside the door to the story room.  On the way in to the story room for each storytime, I’m encouraging attendees to use the hand sanitizer if they’d like or if they think they should.

Logically, I know that hand sanitizer won’t solve the issue of germs being spread at storytimes, since I know for a fact that every time that I’ve gotten sick recently it has been from airborne germs (I never, never, never touch my eyes or mouth or nose while at work).  But hopefully the mere presence of the hand sanitizer will remind people that germs spread quickly in the confined space of the story room, and hopefully anyone who’s sick or has a sick child will choose to stay home.  Hopefully.  And maybe I’ll be able to find a gentle way to let patrons know that when the children’s librarian gets sick, everyone loses, because then there are no storytimes until she gets better.  And given her tendency to nasty bronchial infections, it could take her a long time to get better if she does get sick. 

And I’ll definitely be getting my flu shot as soon as I’m able.  Definitely.