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This study examined issues related to students' participation and online absenteeism among students at Zimbabwe's universities during COVID-19 induced online teaching and learning. More specifically, the study examined some of the ethical issues related to students' participation and assessment during online learning in selected universities in Zimbabwe. The study also examined some of the strategies that can be adopted to optimize students' participation during online learning to make online learning a more honest and interactive endeavour. To fully understand the challenges related to participation and online absenteeism, the study extrapolated the perspectives of students and academic staff who had adopted online learning since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was a mixed-methods study, employing a descriptive-analytical approach which utilised three main methods of data collection. Firstly, semi-structured questionnaires distributed electronically among participants in the selected universities were used to collect research data. Secondly, follow-up online focus-group discussions (FGDs) were conducted to elicit participants' views on some of the ethical challenges posed by online learning and possible strategies for dealing with the challenges. Finally, follow-up telephone interviews were also conducted with lecturers with the same objective as the FGDs. The study's population consisted of 110 students and 77 academic staff randomly selected from six universities in Zimbabwe. Two of the selected universities were privately owned and four were public universities. The study showed some of the technological and pedagogical issues regarding students' participation and strategies for optimising students' participation during online learning. The study also shared some of the ethical challenges that arose from the adoption of online teaching and assessment systems and the policy, resource and training interventions needed to make online learning more interactive, while at the same time safeguarding academic integrity. The findings of this study, therefore, have implications for universities, learners and academic staff if online learning programmes are to be successful. Firstly, universities for instance, need to ensure that students and academic staff have the prerequisite technological resources to ensure that optimal active learning takes place. Secondly, to address the shortage of resources, universities should ensure that their libraries migrate from physical to digital libraries. Universities should also ensure that both academic staff and students receive the necessary training to access these digital libraries and the services they offer.
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The word Metaverse has influenced many sectors such as healthcare, education, retail and manufacturing and few more industries are there which will be impacted by 2026 as per the research conducted by Gartner. The word 'Metaverse' especially in education sector came into existence after the COVID-19 epidemic when the humanity were forced to think about the new methodology of educating and teaching. This ecosphere is the combination of technologies which enables multimodal interactions with artificial environment, electronic library and people such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). It is believed that metaverse will improve collaboration, training process will be enhanced and most importantly it will create a happier workplace. This is only the reason that many corporate giants like Nvidia, facebook, apple, epic Games and companies has shifted towards this pedagogical ecosystem. This technology has the potential which enables absolute incorporating user conversation in actual-time and compelling interactivity with digital artifact. In this paper, we are addressing metaverse in education along with a detailed framework of metaverse in education. It includes a comparative study of conventional education, online education and metaverse education based on parameters like place of learning, resources used, teaching methodology, learning experience, learning target and learning assessment. Competency based education, energize student and positive attitude towards learning. The various challenges of the metaverse in educational sector are also debated. This paper will help the researcher's fraternity to get a deeper insight along with a clear perception of this ecosystem in education. © 2023 IEEE.
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Purpose. The aim of the paper is to present the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022, in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation (IRIM) dealing with the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field. The projects are as follows: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. The mentioned projects encourage the use of digital technologies in libraries in order to develop libraries into advanced centers for the acquisition of digital skills. By providing a mobile library service, the libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Approach/methodology. The paper describes the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022 in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. Through the presentation of the five years of participation in the projects, two of which were completely marked by the coronavirus epidemic, it will be shown how successful the implementation of the projects was in 2018 and 2019, as well as the stagnation that followed in 2020 and 2021, and the start of the revitalization of the projects in 2022. The data was collected in the reports on the work of the Mobile Library Service, on the Zagreb City Libraries website, and from the professional and other papers on the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries. Findings. By presenting the participation in the projects, an attempt was made to indicate the success of their implementation and the development of activities in accordance with the modern IFLA Mobile Library Guidelines (2011). Also, it will be shown that the work program is based on social and demographic changes in the local communities, the computerization of the library systems and the modernization of the IT equipment of the Mobile Library Service, as well as an excellent inter-institutional cooperation. Furthermore, the paper points to the most important thing, which is that by providing a mobile library service, libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Social implications. By being included in the IRIM projects, libraries, as well as mobile libraries, thus develop into advanced centers for acquiring digital skills. The social significance is manifested in the effort to reduce the consequences of social exclusion by providing a mobile library service that also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Originality/value. The paper is a valuable contribution to the very small number of published professional papers on the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation such as "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. © 2023, Hrvatsko Knjiznicarsko Drustvo. All rights reserved.
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The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted an urgent need for streamlined drug development processes. Enhanced virtual screening methods could expedite drug discovery via rapid screening of large virtual compound libraries to identify high-priority drug candidates. The EXSCALATE4CoV (EXaSCale smArt pLatform Against paThogEns for CoronaVirus) consortium (E4C) research team developed EXSCALATE (EXaSCale smArt pLatform Against paThogEns), the most complex screening simulation to date, containing a virtual library of >500 billion compounds and a high-throughput docking software, LiGen (Ligand Generator). Additionally, E4C developed a smaller virtual screen of a "safe-in-man” drug library to identify optimal candidates for drug repurposing. To identify compounds targeting SARS-CoV-2, EXSCALATE performed >1 trillion docking simulations to optimize the probability of identifying successful drug candidates. Ligands identified in simulations underwent subsequent in vitro experimentation to determine drug candidates that have anti-SARS-CoV-2 agency and have probable in-human efficacy. While many compound candidates were validated to have anti-SARS-CoV-2 properties, raloxifene had the best outcome and subsequently demonstrated efficacy in a phase 2 clinical trial in patients with early mild-to-moderate COVID-19, providing proof of concept that the in silico approaches used here are a valuable resource during emergencies. After its emergence in 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spread internationally at a rapid pace, leading to the designation of COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020. In addition to a devastating impact on public health, COVID-19 has resulted in extensive negative social and economic effects in every corner of the globe. When the pandemic arrived, the medical and scientific communities identified an urgent need to establish more rapid therapeutic and vaccine development processes for COVID-19. However, it was clear that any new measures needed to be implemented in a way that also supported rapid mobilization to fight potential future pandemics. Therapeutic discovery is a complicated and prolonged process, often taking 10–15 years to complete all stages, and typically involves a linear workflow starting with in silico investigations, followed by increasingly complex and correspondingly expensive in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies. In the context of the pandemic, the importance of the in silico stage increased because of the capacity of exascale computational methods to identify and prioritize small molecule (and biological) agents with the greatest therapeutic potential. Better in silico-generated starting points for drug-discovery efforts increase the likelihood of success in downstream laboratory-based experimental stages and can contribute to vitally needed reductions in costs and time to market for new therapies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Despite increasing attention to online learning worldwide, learning complex technologies online has always been challenging and even hindersome to students, who are subjected to elevated levels of technostress. In contrast to most previous studies that focused on the negative side of technostress, this study investigated both the negative and positive sides of technostress. Based on the challenge hindrance framework (CHF), the holistic stress model (HSM), and the person-environment fit (P-E Fit) model, we examined how challenge and hindrance techno-stressors caused distress and eustress in online students and lead to associated outcomes. We empirically validated the research model by analyzing survey data collected from 565 online graduate business students enrolled at a university in the United States. The results revealed that some hindrance and challenge techno-stressors were associated with techno-distress and techno-eustress, which further impacted student satisfaction and student retention. We discussed the contributions and implications and provided future research directions.
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As social media use increases, the number of users has risen also. This has increased the volume of data carried over the network, making it more important to secure users' data and privacy from threats. As users are unaware of hackers, social media's security flaws and new forms of attack will persist. Intrusion detection systems, therefore, are vital to identifying intrusion risks. This paper examines a variety of intrusion detection techniques used to detect cyberattacks on social media networks. The paper provides a summary of the prevalent attacks on social media networks, such as phishing, fake profiles, account compromise, and cyberbullying. Then, the most prevalent techniques for classifying network traffic, including statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, are addressed. The literature also demonstrates that because AI can manage vast, scalable networks, AI-based IDSs are more effective at classifying network traffic and detecting intrusions in complex social media networks. However, AI-based IDSs exhibit high computational and space complexities;therefore, despite their remarkable performance, they are more suitable for high computing power systems. Hybrid IDSs, utilizing statistical feature selection and shallow neural networks, may provide a compromise between computational requirements and efficiency. This investigation shows that accuracies of statistical techniques range from 90% to 97.5%. In contrast, AI and ML technique detection accuracy ranges from 78% to 99.95%. Similarly, swarm and evolutionary techniques achieved from 84% to 99.95% and deep learning-based detection techniques achieved from 45% to more than 99% detection rates. Convolutional neural network deep learning systems outperformed other methods due to their ability to automatically craft the features that would classify the network traffic with high accuracy.
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Purpose: This paper aims to find out the digital services of management libraries provided during the library closure and the challenges and initiatives the libraries have taken up to fulfill the need of their user community during the pandemic crisis. Design/methodology/approach: To meet the purpose of the study, the investigators have used a survey method. An online questionnaire was devised and administered among the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) librarians using Microsoft Forms. Findings: The study's findings suggested that all the libraries under investigation must avail of various digital library services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Further, the investigators recommend that libraries formulate a disaster preparedness and management plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic so that libraries can prepare themselves for the future. Originality/value: The pandemic has affected every aspect of life and changed the digital library services scenario. Thus, it is essential to examine the role libraries have played during the COVID-19 pandemic and distinguish the challenges and initiatives libraries have taken to tackle the problems they faced. This study has been conducted on the digital library services that were provided by the libraries of IIMs. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Este artículo presenta una investigación educativa realizada con el objetivo de generar información sobre el uso de la biblioteca digital SolarSPELL, como una estrategia de innovación educativa para la enseñanza del cambio climático en comunidades rurales de las islas Fiyi. SolarSPELL funciona con la energía que generan sus paneles solares y brinda acceso a través de su propia red wifi;además, ofrece una variedad de recursos educativos abiertos, seleccionados por su potencial para fortalecer las prácticas educativas y el logro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la Agenda 2030. Con base en la pregunta de investigación se seleccionó un estudio de caso, pues permite estudiar con intensidad un fenómeno complejo en un corto periodo de tiempo y analizar el objeto de estudio en un contexto especifico. Se aplicó el instrumento DIAPASON en las bibliotecas comunitarias o escolares que participan en el programa piloto. En los resultados se observa que la SolarSPELL coadyuva a la transformación digital de las prácticas educativas y los bibliotecarios valoran poder contar con un mayor número de recursos bibliográficos sobre el cambio climático. En la actualidad, el proyecto "Escuelas que Aprenden Post COVID-19” retomó estos resultados para realizar un piloto en comunidades rurales de Chiapas, México. En los resultados se enfatiza la necesidad de que el bibliotecario del futuro incorpore a su labor acciones enfocadas a la mejora de la calidad de la educación y que permitan potencializar el desarrollo sostenible de sus comunidades, para mejorar el conocimiento colectivo y crear conciencia sobre este fenómeno.Alternate : This article presents an educational research carried out with the aim of generating information on the use of the SolarSPELL Digital Library, as an educational innovation strategy for teaching climate change in rural communities of the Fiji Islands. SolarSPELL works with the energy generated by an integrated solar panel and provides access through its own wifi network. It offers a variety of open educational resources, selected for their potential to strengthen educational practices and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. Based on the research question, a case study was selected, as it allows intensive study a complex phenomenon in a short period of time and analyzes the object of study in a specific context. The DIAPASON instrument was applied in the community or school libraries that participate in the pilot program. The results show that SolarSPELL contributes to the digital transformation of educational practices and the value of the librarians being able to have a greater number of bibliographic resources on climate change. Currently, the project "Schools that Learn Post COVID-19" took up these results to carry out a pilot in rural communities in Chiapas, Mexico. The results emphasize the need for the librarian of the future to incorporate into their work, actions focused on improving the quality of education that allow potentiating the sustainable development of their communities, improving collective knowledge and raising awareness about this phenomenon.
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Israel's aid initiatives have historically been facilitated through the Agency for International Development Cooperation (MASHAV). However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted MASHAVs ability to provide assistance due to budget cuts and government instability. As such, Israel's COVID-19 diplomacy initiative took on greater importance in maintaining its presence and reputation internationally. This article analyzes Israel's approach to COVID-19 diplomacy, which involved providing medical teams, PPE, and surplus vaccines to approximately 20 countries, and examines the political and strategic calculations behind Israel's decision to extend assistance to specific countries. The article argues that Israel's COVID-19 diplomacy initiative was more limited in scope and geography compared to other countries with similar economic development levels, and aid efforts were concentrated in regions where Israel has sought to increase its involvement in recent years, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and Central Europe. Finally, the article assesses the impact of Israel's COVID-19 diplomacy initiative on its diplomatic relations with recipient countries and the broader international community.
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Libraries are adapting to the changing times by providing mobile services. One hundred fifty-one libraries were chosen based on circulation, with at least one library or library system from each state, to explore the diverse services provided to mobile users across the United States. According to the data, mobile apps, mobile reference services, mobile library catalogs, and mobile printing are among public libraries' most-frequently offered services, as determined by mobile visits, content analysis, and librarian survey responses. Every library examined had at least one mobile website, mobile catalog, mobile app, or webpage adapted for a mobile device. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, services such as mobile renewal, subscriber database access, mobile reservations, and the ability to interact with a librarian were expanded to allow better communication with customers-all from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Libraries are continually looking for innovative methods to assist their mobile customers as the world changes.
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In the first 2 years following the outbreak of COVID-19, many papers have been published regarding the impacts and adaptations of the pandemic on computer science education. As a first step towards a systematic literature mapping, this study attempts to develop a process for searching and a categorization schema for papers. The goal of this project is to produce a literature map which will be used to provide an initial assessment of the state of research, as well as a framework for future research directions. Limiting our search to papers published in the ACM Digital Library in the publications sponsored by SIGCSE, we first create and validate a query and inclusion/exclusion criteria for papers. Using a double evaluator model, we find high agreement with a Cohen's Kappa of 0.93, resulting in 42 papers across 6 conference proceedings. We further validate these findings by independent checking against all papers from SIGCSE2021 TS. We then develop categories across three dimensions: In activity: we find remote teaching, remote assessment, remote work, virtual events and general impact of pandemic. In measurement: we find grades, non-grade assessment, attendance/retention, affect/perception, and mental health. In population: we find K-12 students, university/college students, Educators, and the sub-categories of introductory/CS0/CS1 students, gender, and race. Double rater assessments initially produced a relatively low Kappa score of 0.58, but after protocol revision, and the production of additional categories, the kappa score was raised to a very high 0.94. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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The integration between virtual learning environments of recognized individual success, such as the PhET project and the Moodle Platform, presents itself as a path to be explored in the context of Instrumental Orchestration (IO), due to the broad benefits that this type of junction can bring to STEM teaching and learning. In this perspective, we conducted a purely interpretive study to investigate the role of IO, in different resources, on the academic success of students in a Bioengineering course, by comparing two activities, corresponding to the extremes of their scores, in electromagnetism laboratory practices, converted to Hybrid Teaching, by means of the COVID19 pandemic. For this, an evaluative framework was built based on the bibliographic reference, which underwent refinements adapting it to the available data, to finally analyze the IO dimensions referring to PhET, Moodle, proposed activities and interactions among participants. The main contribution of the research refers to the need for a better orchestration between simulated activities and laboratory practices, naturally accompanied by more productive interactions. This kind of research also contributes to the elaboration of new pedagogical practices, anchored in facts concerning the different approaches of IO and the way students learn. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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On Twitter, COVID-19 is a highly discussed topic. People worldwide have used Twitter to express their viewpoints and feelings during the pandemic. Previous research has focused on particular topics such as the public's sentiment during the lockdown, their opinion on governmental measures, or their stance towards COVID-19 vaccines. However, until today, there is no comprehensive overview that presents possible areas of application for sentiment analysis of COVID-19 Twitter data. Therefore, this study reveals how sentiment analysis can provide relevant insights for managing the pandemic by applying a behavioral and social science lens. In this context, our systematic literature review focuses on machine learning-based sentiment analysis techniques and compares the best-performing classification algorithms for COVID-19-related Twitter data. We performed a search in five databases, which are: IEEE Xplore DL, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, ACM DL, and AIS Electronic Library. This search resulted in 40 papers published between October 2019 and January 2022 that used sentiment analysis to evaluate the public opinion on COVID-19-related topics, which we further investigated. Our research indicates that the best performing models in terms of accuracy are ensemble models that comprise various machine learning classifiers. Especially BERT and RoBERTa models provide the most promising results when fine-tuned on Twitter data. Our study aims to combine machine learning-based sentiment analysis and insights from social and behavioral science to provide decision-makers and public health experts with guidance on the application of sentiment analysis in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. © 2013 IEEE.
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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate digital public spaces and audiences and to explore the relationship of digital public spaces to both ideas of nationhood and physical public institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe article investigates tensions arising from the conjuncture of public spaces and digital culture through the lens of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). This research uses qualitative content analysis of a range of data sources including semi-structured interviews, primary texts and secondary texts.FindingsThe construction of the public library space as a digital entity does not attract anticipated audiences. Additionally, the national framing of the DPLA is not compatible with how audiences engage with digital public spaces.Originality/valueDrawing on original, qualitative data, this article engages with the prevalent but undertheorized concept of digital public spaces. The article addresses unreflexive uses of the digital public and the assumptions connected to the imagined audiences for platforms like the DPLA.
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Digital reading by college students has become a basic trend with the development of digitalization and network technology, and its role has become more and more prominent under the influence of COVID-19. From the perspective of Marxism epistemology, this paper conducts a large-scale sample survey and SPSS statistical research. By means of independent sample t-test, variance analysis, multi-corresponding variable analysis and cross-tabulation and other statistical commands, this paper analyzes the pattern, preference and attitude of digital reading among college students. It proposes corresponding countermeasures from three levels of digital content, university library and college students as the subject. © 2022 IEEE.
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The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of the Canadian economy on many fronts. When the demand for lifesaving equipment increased globally, the supply chain networks were broken by the direct involvement of other countries. The rising competition and interruptions caused Canada to face significant difficulties in global markets to secure critical medical equipment and protective materials. Not only hospitals and healthcare workers but also the public and patients had no access to the needed equipment even though companies and organizations in the country have the required capacity and resources. In such emergency times, Canada should produce the essential equipment within the country. We propose a four-step strategic product manufacturing system to ensure crisis response. The first and second steps are creating a manufacturing capability database of Canadian companies and a library of product families, respectively. These two steps should be completed before the crisis. The third step involves emergency need analysis, equipment design and forecasting. Finally, the fourth step is developing a virtual supply chain network platform through which the procurement, production, and transportation activities will be scheduled based on the capability database, product families library, and requirements analysis in the most efficient and economical way possible. The research utilizes various tools such as forecasting, optimization, simulation, multi-criteria decision making, and engineering design tools. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The current study focuses on the numerous duties of "Academic Learning Centres” within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Novel Corona Virus pandemic has created new problems for all stakeholders inside the education system. Given the extrinsic obstacles of delivering services during a public health crisis, the unexpected emergence of the virus pushed libraries to migrate to digital platforms whenever possible and deliver acceptable remote services to users. The purpose of this study is to discover how technology became an impediment for India's best educational institutes during the Covid-19 situation. The current article assists library professionals in improving their skill set in accordance with things and serving information as a responsible citizen of the country. © 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
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This study examined how automation systems enhanced the operations of university libraries in Nigeria and the United Kingdom (UK) during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviewed literature on the extent of automation, effectiveness of the use of automation technology and ascertained the challenges of automation in the operations of university libraries during COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Findings revealed that most university libraries in the UK are fully automated while university libraries in Nigeria are either partially automated or not automated. During the COVID-19 lockdown, university libraries in the UK were able to provide services, while Nigerian libraries were unable to render services. UK and Nigeria were both faced with challenges during the lockdown. Some UK libraries could not optimally provide services due to insufficient licenses for digital content. In Nigeria, there were several socio-technical issues such as inadequate staff access to computers and the internet, poor power supply, and a lack of ICT skills. The study concluded that university libraries in Nigeria should embrace more technology if they want to be effective in their operations and be able to compete favourably in the global space. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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PurposeThe research examined Scottish public libraries and the libraries' response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020–2021. The research focussed particularly around the way that the libraries helped to support community resilience and cohesion during periods of lockdown. The study considered issues around the closure of services in March 2020, digital services, the loss of physical library spaces and governance models. The research presents the voice of service managers rather than being a user study. The research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UKRI (United Kingdom Research and Innovation), as a part of the council's scheme to provide response to the pandemic of 2020.Design/methodology/approachThis was an exploratory study examining how Scottish public library services responded to the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Three methods were deployed in the investigation. First, the gathering social media and other web-based content from library services over the months March–September 2020 (amounting to over four thousands snips of content) were analysed thematically. Second, 19 semi-structured interviews with service managers across Scotland were conducted. These were recorded, transcribed and analysed. These elements formed the cornerstone of the research but were supported by a short survey distributed to all public library services in Scotland focussed on e-lending during lockdown.FindingsFindings are presented in respect of the lessons to be learnt from the closure of physical services and the migration to digital only provision, the contribution made to supporting communities, health and well-being, the importance of the balance of physical and digital library services around governance models for library services, as well as around the process of reopening services. This research explores how staff responded to this unparalleled situation, how the staff maintained close relationship with the communities the staff serve, what services themselves learnt through lockdown, and how the staff's management practices adapted. The findings present voices from Scottish libraries during 2020.Research limitations/implicationsThe research presents a snapshot of activities during a period of fast-moving change. The research, therefore, presents a snapshot of March–December 2020, which is, however, an extremely important snapshot. The first lockdown was perhaps most interesting to study from a research perspective because the authors witnessed, real-time, how the staff responded and reacted (with lessons learnt and applied in subsequent regional or national lockdowns later in 2020 and in the 2021). The second lockdown and subsequent periods were outside the scope of this research.Practical implicationsRecommendations are offered around the need for a national conversation about digital content provision in public libraries and the exploration of possibilities of a national approach, the role libraries have as digital enablers (in supporting effort to overcome the digital divide in society), the crucial nature of continued strong advocacy for public libraries, the importance of the library as a physical space, and on how to maintain the flexibility, agility and autonomy which emerged during lockdown.Social implicationsThe research presents strong testimony about the social value of public libraries as free, safe and public spaces within communities. It also highlights the continued digital divide which exists in many places and the important role that public libraries have in being digital enablers for many members of the public. The closeness of library service staff to users is strongly evidenced in the testimony from managers as is the need for parent organisation (local authorities or in culture or leisure trusts) to recognise more fully the breadth of services the public library provides and how these are "essential” for many users.Originality/valueThe value and distinctiveness of this research lies in the fact that the research captured the voices, thou hts and perceptions of Scotland's public libraries during the period of lockdown in 2020. The evidence gathered suggests important conversations are required around equity of e-lending provision, the role of libraries as digital enablers, the balance between physical and digital provision and around the ways libraries are managed (directly by local authorities or in culture trusts). The research affords lessons for public library provision beyond Scotland with many issues being transferable to other contexts.