Canadian university research libraries during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

This paper documents the services and changes that library staff at a group of 15 Canadian university research libraries highlighted on their main pandemic pages and social media accounts during the early days of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Findings suggest that libraries in the samples adopted the following services and changes closing the physical libraries;suspending all physical collection services and in-person events;continuing to provide virtual reference services;promoting access and usage of electronic collections;suspending late fees and renewing checked-out items with a new due date;and advising users to wait before returning borrowed items. Notably, all libraries in this study were operating as full-scale digital libraries. This study will provide lessons learned to other libraries around the world to help in reviewing their own operational policies for coping with the current COVID-19 pandemic and for future global public health crises.