Earlier this month, I participated on a Chronicle of Higher Education panel called “The Campus Library,” which discussed the impact COVID-19 has had on libraries. My peer participants, Alexia Hudson-Ward (MIT) and Joe Lucia (Temple), and I fielded questions from Chronicle moderator Scott Carlson about how libraries adapted their spaces, services, and programming during the pandemic, and in turn, how we are planning for post-COVID work and services.
We began by explaining that while COVID’s challenges have been myriad, libraries have been preparing for a quick pivot to virtual services and programming and the deployment of digital resources for more than 30 years. The backbone of this readiness is our staff’s competencies and their comfort with a range of technologies that allowed them to transition relatively painlessly to virtual programming. There’s also the vast corpora of digital resources available through HathiTrust, the Internet Archive, and through our own scholarly e-resources, which provided access to scholarly materials, enabling continued research and learning.
We also discussed how some research libraries have remained closed during the pandemic while others, including the University of Rochester Libraries, re-opened after a brief closure last spring, albeit, with a diminished number of learning spaces due to social-distancing. My fellow panelists and I remarked how incredibly creative and resilient our staff have been throughout the pandemic, evidenced by the transition to virtual instruction, programming, and workshops that have attracted a large number of participants. We agreed that many of these adaptations will be put into common practice for the future.
Conversation then turned toward the future of in-person use and staffing. The panel uniformly and emphatically expressed our belief that students will return to their old library habits. We all felt that students are hungry to get back to in-person, collaborative study, experiential learning, workshops, and programming, as well as reclaiming the library as a place of community. As for library employees, we agreed that greater flexibility is in order. How this is put in to practice should be guided by the nature of the work. We also need to pay close attention to organizational culture to ensure good health and high morale.
Overall, it was a lively and interesting discussion. I was glad to have the opportunity to share how the University of Rochester Libraries has deftly navigated these immensely challenging times. While we’re still far from a “post-COVID” world and, in the U.S., there are a growing number of reasons to be optimistic, there are countries, such as India, Brazil, and Canada, where COVID remains very much in the present. My heart goes out to all who are still piecing their lives back together and fighting to put this virus behind them.
Mary Ann Mavrinac
Vice Provost and Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean
University of Rochester Libraries
