Many turned to libraries during the pandemic. Will these venerable public institutions get the credit they deserve?

But during the pandemic, he was asked to act in some heroic ways.

Escobedo, a bilingual Spanish-English librarian, manages a branch of the San Francisco Public Library.

For more than a year, however, Escobedo hasn’t been lending out books. Instead, he’s worked with a Covid-19 contact tracer team for San Francisco’s Department of Public Health.

Covid has affected American schools, hospitals and businesses. But libraries — which often serve people who have nowhere else to turn — have responded in unprecedented ways. Like many of us, they’ve had to pivot, going from providing extensive…