Following a NSW public health order, the doors of Cowra Library have reopened albeit with a few changes.
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Only 20 people, including staff, can be in the library at any one time and users can only stay for a maximum of 30 minutes.
Librarian Caroline Eisenhauer said the only services available at this time are borrowing books using the self-checkout and returning books via the after-hours chute.
"The library is managing all of the returns by putting them through the after-hours chute and then they go into quarantine for 24 hours," she said.
"One dedicated staff member is then sanitising the books before they go back onto the shelves.
"The self-check unit, you need a card... anybody who doesn't have a card yet can register online at the moment, that's a new feature... they still can't come in until they have a physical card but once they get that, they are set up and ready to go.
"There's no other services because of the health regulations, no computers, no scanning, no faxing, no printing, no sitting in the library."
There are also new opening hours in place - 10am until 4pm on weekdays and 10am until 12.30pm on Saturdays.
"That enables staff, after hours when there's nobody around... for us to get the books back onto the shelves safely," Mrs Eisenhauer said.
"We've got a concierge at the door meeting people and that's how we stop people from coming in who don't need to be here... so there's no handling of anything coming from outside and that's our method of screening people too."
Mrs Eisenhauer said despite a slow start after opening on Monday, she's seen a steady flow of people return to the library.
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"I think a lot of people are being very cautious, so they are coming in and borrowing heaps of books and they're not going to come back for another visit as regularly as what they used to and that's fine by us," she said.
"We've relaxed the rules so there's no overdue charges, they can take nearly as many books as they wish.
"It's really lovely to see a lot of the older members of the community who have been in isolation themselves and they just want to talk to people so we've been able to have lots of chats with them. They've missed us."
