ABSTRACT
This article attempts to evaluate the library services and facilities during the pandemic situations in Pakistan. This study is fashioned in positivistic tradition of quantitative research design, and a cross-sectional research method was employed. The objective of the study was to examine the library services available to students and faculty members in two public sector academic libraries in Pakistan. A complete list of students and faculty members was collected from the concerned offices along with their WhatsApp numbers and email address. A total of 1736 students and faculty members sampled through proportionate random sampling technique and filled the questionnaire out of 7835. The inclusion criteria to participate was based on enrolled students of public and private sector university, passed at least one semester of BS (4 years) and MA/MSc (2 years) programme in Pakistan, and faculty members using library resources. A structured questionnaire to measure the response of library patrons and consisted of exogenous and endogenous variables and pretested. The study findings showed that COVID-19 pandemic situations affected educational institutions at a large scale. The social distancing rule was opted to minimise the risk of infection and university libraries were also closed down. However, due to online learning transformation, library materials were digitalized and online library services were provided to students and faculty members.
ABSTRACT
Online libraries provide access to a wide range of information, with an almost limitless amount of resources and options that can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. However, most of the online libraries do not cater to the needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) students. It has been observed that DHH pupils were mostly excluded from education during COVID-19. Curriculum resources for K-12 DHH students' education are the same as regular school students' materials. Most of the DHH students prefer gestures and learn through visual representations. Therefore, a picture book was developed for the photosynthesis concept. Similarly, a home sign language video was recorded. These were included as an integral part of the developed online library prototype. This study focused on validating the usability of the online library application. Students acknowledged the usefulness of the online library prototype. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This study examines the experiences of academic library instructors when shifting from primarily in-person to primarily online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. A 20-question survey was distributed to academic and medical librarian listservs. Questions asked 244 participants about various aspects of their experiences providing library instruction during the pandemic. Results indicated that most respondents experienced a successful transition to online instruction during, though many found the experience challenging. Open-ended responses revealed areas where instructors felt online instruction was more effective than in-person instruction, and areas where they felt it was not. Many instructors indicated an intention to continue to provide online instruction options into the future. Based on these survey results, a few key areas of recommendation are proposed where academic libraries can better prepare their instruction librarians for future emergent situations.
ABSTRACT
Libraries are encountering certain challenges derived from changes on their business environment. With the advent of COVID-19 pandemic, digital and online functions of university libraries in Korea is suggested as an alternative for the future. Thus, it is significant to assess libraries’ business efficiency focusing on digital function while it is able to acquire valuable factors for future strategy. Therefore, the study adopts DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), a widely accepted analysis model for measuring efficiency. Moreover, the study derived appropriate factors for efficiency assessment in digital service of university library by literature review. Through this, factors regarding efficiency in university libraries can be measured. We hope this study could contribute to identify inefficient factors in university libraries as well as gaining basic data for developing improvement strategy for future. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.