COVID-19 IMPACT ON INFORMATION ORGANIZATION: DELIVERING INFORMATION AND LIBRARY SERVICES DURING A PANDEMIC [ARTICLE]

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and far-reaching impact on how we live and work all over the world. The year 2020 and the first part of 2021 were characterized with fear, uncertainty, and rapid change as society took shelter from the menacing pandemic. Yet, during the same time, we witnessed unprecedented transformation as various businesses and enterprises reinvented themselves to combat not only the deadly effects of the pandemic, but also the disruption it was causing in all sectors of life. Within higher education, libraries featured prominently among units rethinking their operations to effectively support the continuity of research, teaching, and learning in their respective institutions. As a result, creative ways of organizing, accessing, and delivering services and information despite the constraints of the pandemic emerged. We saw the birth of curbside services, the enhancement of electronic access to collections, the increase of digitization on demand, and the emphasis of virtual library services such as chat reference and online library classes...