Hillsborough County will reopen nine of its public libraries at 25 percent capacity, which began on November 16. Locally, this means that Bloomingdale Regional Public Library located at 1906 Bloomingdale Ave. in Valrico and the SouthShore Regional Library located at 15816 Beth Shields Way in Ruskin are reopened.
The libraries will be open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The libraries will have strict entry rules in place to ensure the safety and health of all visitors and staff.
These include: visits will be limited to one hour, children under the age of 17 must be accompanied by a parent, all who enter must wear face masks that cover both the mouth and nose, all visitors will receive a temperature check before entering the building and visitors may not bring in food or drinks.
The libraries are not accepting donated books at this time.
Study rooms, meeting rooms, makerspaces and recording studios will remain closed.
The library had developed a robust online and virtual set of programs for children, teens and adults when it was forced to shut its doors back in March. Many of these programs will continue to be offered, including story times.
Contact-free curbside hold pickups and curbside printing, scanning, faxing and copying are still available at other library locations. In addition, the Borrow by Mail service continues to offer a convenient, contact-free home delivery option for books, audiobooks, DVDs and music CDs.
The decision to reopen certain libraries at 25 percent capacity came after consulting with health officials, emergency managers, library staff and Hillsborough County officials.
On September 1, 1999, the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative was formed.
The Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library promotes lifelong learning, an informed citizenry, individual intellectual freedom, enhanced quality of life and broadened horizons for all residents of Hillsborough County.
The Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library THPL maintains a network of neighborhood libraries with open access, a community focus, responsive service hours, welcoming environments, broad and relevant materials in a variety of formats and highly qualified employees.
For more information on the services that you can get from your local library, please visit www.hcplc.org.
