2021 HLA+PIALA Joint Conference

What No One Learned in Library School: How to Provide Library Services During a Pandemic: Views From Two Department Chairs

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended everyone’s lives and recent outbreaks, for example, bird flu (2016-2017) and SARS (2001), were localized and did not spread around the world. What we are all experiencing is unprecedented in our lifetime.

Our presentation will give viewpoints from two academic librarians with many years of experience, one from a public services department and the other from a collection services department. Both dealt with communicating with their staff and administrators, while also managing shifting expectations and fears in a constantly changing environment. You’ll get a view from inside the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) Library, from initially hearing about the coronavirus in China in Dec. 2019, to having our campus shutdown in March 2020 and staff working from home, to the UHM Library being open only to UH people. The last year and a half has been managing on the fly, pivoting when necessary, and a lot of communicating. We’ll share what we’ve learned from the last 18 months and what we foresee as crucial to our library “reopening” in the fall. One key component is having discussions about doing work differently and being empathetic and patient with patrons and fellow staff members so that we can provide library services safely for all involved.

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