Remaking academic library services in Zimbabwe in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the global COVID -19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life, access to higher education has not been out of danger as evidenced by the enforcement of official closures, enforcement lockdown and social distancing rules by governments throughout the world. However, while the COVID-19 pandemic has presented the world with numerous socioeconomic challenges, it has also helped to spur creativity and information as evidenced by the responses of academic libraries that have seen a heighted use of digital platforms to support education, teaching and research. The study sought to establish how librarians in Zimbabwe responded to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the implications of the pandemic on library service delivery. A qualitative research was adopted for the study. Using snowballing, interviews were used to gather data beginning with the library association's branch leadership. The researchers ensured that the questions were aligned to the research objectives. The interview schedule included open and closed questions to enable participants to provide further details relating to the phenomenon under study. The participants were guaranteed their rights to consent, privacy and anonymity in the introduction of the interview schedule. An The study reveals that there has been an increase in the use online platforms for accessing information especially library's webpages, electronic books and journals. The use of library online resources from distance locations also rose following closure of campuses. Library patrons' perceptions towards electronic resources significantly improved as they realized that they were equally useful as the print. Findings from the study provide useful recommendation on how librarians can remodel their services to match new demands presented by the COVD-19 pandemic. The study provides a starting point upon which further research on the effect of COVID-19 or other similar pandemics have on library service delivery.     

Communicating with medical library users during COVID-19

Background:The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library serves a community of over 22,000 individuals primarily from the Yale Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing and the Yale New Haven Hospital. Though they are geographically close to one another, reaching these disparate populations can be a challenge. Having a clear and thorough communication plan has proved invaluable in transcending communication chasms, especially in recent times of crisis.Case Presentation:This article describes the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library''s methods for communicating and promoting its remote resources and services in response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It details our communication strategies and messages leading up to, and after, the Yale campus was closed and specifies how we pivoted from reaching users inside the library to reaching our audiences remotely.Conclusions:Our communication plan has provided the foundation for all of our messaging, be it print or digital media. In recent moments of crisis, it has been especially helpful for planning and executing large scale messaging. Similarly, knowing whom to contact around our organization to promote our message in different and broader ways has been extremely beneficial.     

Academic library spaces and student activities during the COVID-19 pandemic

A library in higher education plays a primary role in students' learning on campus. In addition to individually-focused studying, students come to a library for various purposes, such as group learning, collaborating, and socializing. To support students' different types of learning, appropriate physical and functional environments of the spaces must be provided. However, the environmental effects of learning spaces have not been explored extensively. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced students to remain and study at home for extended periods, and it is expected that the pandemic experience has affected students' space use patterns. This study aims to examine the effect of the pandemic on students' library usage and to investigate the necessary environments to effectively support students' learning activities. Data was collected via interviews with 12 students. One of the main findings is that, even though students used the library less during the pandemic, they expected to use it as much as pre-pandemic or even more after the pandemic. Furthermore, both physical and functional environments were associated with the study performance and wellbeing of the students. Therefore, understanding students' learning activities and preferred environments in a library is critical to providing appropriate spaces supporting students' learning performance and wellbeing.     

COVID-19 doesn't change anything: Neoliberalism,generation-ism,academic library buildings,and lazy rivers

Does COVID-19 challen04ge the persistence of neoliberalism? The pandemic and popular resistance to globalization seem to coincide, and there considerable discussion of neoliberalism within LIS now. First, this paper defines the centrality of the market as neoliberalism. With that in place, the remaining parts of the paper will explore and document phenomena in and related to academic libraries that instantiate how neoliberalism stubbornly persists. Second, the continuing reliance on generational cohorts to characterize incoming students – generation-ism– is a manifestation of categories of consumption and marketing. The influence of generation-ism on academic libraries is significant in the form of design pressures on space and to market the college experience. Third, where neoliberalism does tend to drive higher education investments in facilities, it results in the “lazy river” trend. This will be examined in direct contrast to the finance/space pressures on academic libraries. The paper concludes with a short discussion of these factors and what this analysis can tell us about academic libraries going forward into a post-COVID-19 era.     

The public library as social infrastructure for older patrons: Exploring the implications of online library programming for older adults during COVID-19

Public library systems' websites were often the sole means for older patrons to access library services and programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study integrated Pauwels' (2012) framework to analyze 25 Ontario public library systems' websites for evidence of their available programming for older adults during the early months of COVID-19. The 640 identified programs for older adults revealed a number of patterns, including issues regarding visibility and representation of older patrons on library websites as well as assumptions surrounding older adults' access to technologies. Discussions consider three implications for public libraries as they reopen and create new virtual spaces “postpandemic”: questioning (re)distributions of resources that support both virtual and in-person services, questioning implicit assumptions that digital connection will foster social connection, and questioning the effects of the library as a virtual space on feelings of social connectedness.     

Collection management at heythrop College: The contribution of the academic staff through the medium of individual library interviews

The library of Heythrop College, University of London, has a number of unusual features which influence the management of the collection. To date, however, it has operated without a formal collection management policy. As a contribution to the process of producing such a policy, the study described asked key questions about the role of the Library and the resources available to through interviews with the most influential stakeholders, the academic staff.

On the basis of interviews with the twenty‐nine permanent staff and seven other key stakeholders, expectations about the role of the Library were considered and the fitness of the collection for the purposes required of it are assessed. Some specific issues raised by the interviews, affecting the Library's collection management, are considered. In particular the provision of multiple copies, electronic resources and the ‘explosion’ of publishing are discussed. The usefulness of the staff interview as a collection management tool is also examined.     

高校图书馆应关怀"弱势学生群体"

文章分析了我国高校"弱势学生群体"的特点,并针对这些特点指出了新时期高校图书馆应承担从物质与生活、精神与心理以及文化等方面对弱势学生群体进行关怀的新使命.     

Determining COVID-19's impact on an academic medical library's literature search service

Objective:At many institutions, literature search services are an important aspect of health science librarianship. This exploratory study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the use of an academic hospital medical library''s literature search service.Methods:To evaluate the pandemic''s impact on literature searching at The University of Tennessee Medical Center''s Preston Medical Library, data were analyzed for changes from the year before the pandemic (March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020) to the first year during the pandemic (March 1st, 2020 to February 28, 2021). This was accomplished using LibWizard, a library feedback and assessment application, to review literature search data during the two periods. Variables of interest included total searches, purpose of searches, affiliation of the searcher, and searches with a pandemic-related research question.Results:A 36.6% drop in literature search service usage was reported from the pre-pandemic year to the during-pandemic year. There was a 55.3% decrease in searches intended for research, as well as significant decreases in the number of searches requested by all patron affiliations. After March 2020, 10% of all searches concerned a COVID-related topic.Conclusion:The overall decrease in literature search requests, decrease in research searches, decrease in searches among all patron affiliations, and increase in searches on a COVID-related topic suggest that healthcare worker and institutional priorities changed during the pandemic. The results revealed research interests during the first year of the pandemic, as well as an overall change in library service functionality.     

论图书馆价值观建设

本从图书馆价值观对图书馆发展的意义入手，阐发了建设图书馆价值观的意义。同时，分析了图书馆价值观的类型和特点，最后，提出培育图书馆价值观的方法。     

高校图书馆的组织重组研究

网络信息环境的日新月异、用户信息需求的不断增强以及各种管理理念的提出都深刻影响着图书馆的发展，给图书馆的发展带来了机遇与挑战。如何实行图书馆组织机构的有效重组，使图书馆更加适应新的发展环境，是目前图书馆业内人士探讨的一个热门话题。本文从全国60余家高校图书馆现行组织机构调研入手，分析了目前国内高校图书馆组织结构的现状，并对高校图书馆组织机构重组的原则、模式进行了探讨。     

高校图书馆建设创新的理性思考

面对网络信息环境，阐述高校图书馆建设的机遇与挑战，分析高校图书馆建设的优势与不足，从管理观念、人才资源开发、信息资源建设、读服务效益四个方面，对高校图书馆建设的创新机制进行理性思考，并提出高校图书馆建设的基本创新策略。     

关于高校图书馆的体验式服务

本文就高校图书馆开展体验式服务的现状以及发展的对策进行了论述.     

Measuring the quality of reference services provided by paraprofessionals at an academic library

The goals of this research study are: 1) to investigate the level of complexity of chat reference questions; 2) to measure the performance of paraprofessional reference staff based on answer correctness and patron interactions; and 3) to use this data to assess the overall effectiveness of the triage reference-services model currently used by all three campus libraries of MCPHS University. A team of five reference librarians conducted a retrospective two-year evaluation of live-chat reference transactions. The questions' complexity was evaluated using the Reference Effort Assessment Data (READ) scale, while the answer correctness and patron interactions were scored using a rubric. The study provides data in support of the triage reference-services model and evidence that, with proper training, paraprofessional reference assistants can offer high-quality reference services for academic libraries' patrons.     

COVID-19 impact on the Chinese top academic libraries: Libraries' response to space,collection and services

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was a major public health emergency on a global scale. The literature regarding the pandemic and its impact on academic libraries is still rising. This article examines the two-year process of developing a flexible service scenario and the broader picture by analyzing data on Chinese top university libraries' programmes and outreach initiatives prior to, during, and the normal COVID-19 pandemic (Sept. 2019–Sept. 2021). COVID-19 is found to have a significant impact on the physical space, collection development, and service of the library, demonstrating the characteristics of space access restricted by security measures, collection digitization, and online service. This research also examines the previous year's initiatives and programmes and discusses the next phase of “new normal” procedures. Hopefully, this study will give insight on how Chinese libraries responded to the recent pandemic, informing libraries' outreach and efforts to be better prepared to take imperative, swift, and decisive action in the post-COVID-19 era and beyond.     

新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情期间专题信息服务工作及引发的思考

介绍新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情防控期间中华医学会杂志社开展的专题信息服务工作,包括开放阅读专业学术期刊、搭建学术交流平台、开展新型冠状病毒肺炎相关研究的优先数字出版、推出人文内容、制作学术专辑等。结合国内外学术出版机构或信息平台的新型冠状病毒肺炎专题信息发布工作,讨论了专题信息服务及学术出版在出版效率、数据可视化、智慧出版、研究和伦理规范、科研评价、社会责任等方面的现状及存在的问题,进行了相关思考,提出了解决的路径。     

论并校办馆中的融合

合并后的高校图书馆,如何将并馆带来的机遇性优势转化为现实的优势,关键在于实现实质性融合,在此基础上,本文阐述了并馆融合的指导思想及融合中应遵循的原则,提出了开创并馆融合工作新局面的七项措施.     

Measures of library use and user satisfaction with academic library services

Library use and user satisfaction are multidimensional concepts. However, traditional methods of evaluation do not include appropriate global measures of these concepts. Two indices of library use and user satisfaction have been derived from a number of characteristics collected by means of a questionnaire that combined individual variable-scores and expressed them as a final score. One form of index was based on a simple approach producing a weighted sum of individual values scored for all surveyed items. The second form, based on the theory of factor analysis, especially the principal components procedure, highlighted the most important items defining either library use or user satisfaction. Thus, the indices verified the presence of any correlation between user satisfaction and library use and evaluated library activities and services at the libraries of the National University of Rwanda. They could be used to compare various libraries sharing the same baseline characteristics and profiles.     

The impact of COVID-19 on reference services: a national survey of academic health sciences librarians

Objectives:The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the scope and adaptive nature of reference services provided by academic health sciences librarians over a one-year period (between March 2020 and March 2021) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods:In March 2021, academic health sciences librarians in the United States were invited to participate in an anonymous online survey about their experiences providing reference services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey was developed, pretested, and distributed to various listservs.Results:A total of 205 academic health sciences librarians and other information professionals with health sciences liaison responsibilities in the US (N=205) responded to the online survey. The scope of reference services provided during the COVID-19 pandemic included email-based reference services (97%), virtual reference (89%), telephone (80%), text-based (33%), and in-person (31%). The most common types of COVID-related reference questions included COVID-19 treatments (53%), safety precautions (46%), vaccines (41%), and prevalence (38%). Additionally, the identification of challenging reference questions and examples of misinformation were provided by respondents.Conclusions:The results of the survey characterize the evolving nature and scope of academic health sciences reference work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Librarians reported an increase in reference questions during the pandemic and are answering them in creative ways despite barriers (e.g., limited time and reduction in resources). There is an opportunity for librarians to continue to address COVID-related misinformation. Overall, these findings provide useful insight for library practitioners and administrators planning reference services during public health crises.