The Emery County Libraries are full of activities and services for the public. The county has eight libraries that help serve the rural area. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Director, Desiree Malley to talk about all the great stuff taking place at the libraries.

“Right now, during the pandemic we do have some limitations on the things we are doing but we have resumed a lot of our activities. All the libraries are offering some preschool storytime and some are even offering after-school storytime. Anyone who is interested would definitely contact our local library and then they can tell them more or they can find out the information on our webpage,” said Malley. Individuals can access the web page by visiting http://lib.emerycounty.com/ The website shares a calendar of all the activities taking place at each library.

The libraries are located in Castle Dale, Cleveland, Elmo, Emery, Ferron, Green River, Huntington and Orangeville. “As soon as we were able to negotiate some limitations with the Health Department, we opened up so people could use our computers and we’re open fully right now for all our hours. No limitations, we’re allowing everybody who wants to come in, come in and we try and sanitize often but we’re really just trying to serve the public the best we can,” said Malley. Operating hours generally are from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm with some exceptions which can be found by visiting the Emery County Library System website.

There are many services that each of the library’s offer their patrons. “We definitely have public computers for use and one of our new programs we launched this fall is Asset Program. What that is, we have four Chromebooks in every library that are set aside for student use. We worked with Emery County School District to set them up so they mirror, they look exactly like what the student’s use in their schools and so they can get on there and access the programs that they use for learning and they can use those inside the library,” said Malley. The libraries are currently working on an initiative to allow students to checkout a Chromebook for 24 hours to utilize at home. Further details of this program can be found by contacting each of the libraries.

Another great service is the library has apps available on smartphones to check out books. “Through the state library we’re part of the Beehive Consortium and what that allows us to do is have access to Overdrive which provides us ebooks, and audio books, and even some video access. So people can actually use their phone and with the Emery County number, right now, you don’t even have to have a library card just because you are in Emery County and it will recognize that and you can get on and get access to those resources,” stated Malley. For further information about how to access the apps contact one of the libraries in Emery County.