St. Petersburg College (SPC) Libraries and Learning Centers have always been student focused, and this mission continued despite the sudden shift of almost 1,800 campus-based courses to online modalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the pandemic brought our staff together in ways we never envisioned and helped keep our connections with students during these challenging times. As a combined effort among our library administration, librarians, instructional support specialists, paraprofessionals, and library technicians, many creative programs, workshops, and events were developed to continue to foster engagement with SPC students. Using primarily the Zoom platform, programs such as Virtual Therapy Dog sessions, Stitch, Please! crafting group, Virtual Tailgating event, and the Diversity and Databases series kept our staff connected to students. In addition to creating student connections, library staff continued to further the college’s mission of supporting the community by reaching out to a local retirement home and organizing a way for SPC to send cards to residents during quarantine.
